Memories and impressions, 1831-1900

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MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

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MEMORIES /SWl^.
AND IMPRESSIONS ^'^'^

183I— 1900

HON. GEORGE CHARLES BRODRICK

WARDEN OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

LONDON
JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED

21 BERNERS STREET
1900
K

K, \So-i-\b

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson 6^ Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

PREFACE

The present volume has ' not the character of an
Autobiography ; nor, indeed, could its author plead
any of the usual excuses for publishing a Memoir of
himself. It is not the life-history of one who has
attained to eminence ; it is not the record of an
eventful career ; it contains few, if any, graphic
pictures pf remarkable scenes or remarkable men.
Since I am not " one who has kept a diary," some
^Ht)teworthy incidents have doubtless escaped my
recollection ; while, on the other hand, I have been
under no temptation to insert extracts on matters of
slight importance.

It is, therefore, with genuine diffidence that I
put forth this modest collection of "Memories and
Impressions," instead of reserving them for the
perusal of indulgent relations and friends. If they
shall be found to possess any value for the general
reader, it must be derived from the source which
has secured acceptance for other memorials of quiet
lives. No man who is approaching his seventieth
year, who has passed through many phases of ex-
perience, who has viewed the world with open eyes,
and who has thought for himself with open mind.

vi PREFACE

can fail to have something to say which persons like
himself may care to hear, if he can but say it with
simplicity and sincerity. While I claim no sensa-
tional attraction for my own Memories, and no
special originality for my own Impressions, I have
been encouraged to hope that both may interest
some readers to whom I am personally unknown,
and with this hope I await their friendly criticism.

I desire to make it clear, at the outset, that, in
speaking of more or less eminent persons whom I
have been fortunate enough to know, I have no
intention whatever of presenting a series of character-
sketches, or of drawing a complete portrait of a
single individual. Least of all do I presume to offer
" appreciations," favourable or otherwise, of persons
still living. Without blaming other writers of
different gifts or temperament, I may say, for
myself, that I have never consciously studied the
characters of my friends, however eminent, from a
literary or artistic point of view, and that I shrink
from bestowing formal praise or censure on those of
them whom I still hope to meet on intimate terms
in daily life.

One more disclaimer I venture to make. Having
once decided on taking the public into my con-
fidence, I cannot disguise my deliberate impressions,
even when they happen to rise into strong convic-
tions. On Home Kule, therefore, and some other

PREFACE vii

subjects, I have spoken without reserve, and un-
reserved speech may sometimes give oflfence to
sensitive opponents. I can only say that I would
gladly have avoided this, if it had been possible, and
that I have never resented fair criticism of my own
public action. As " life's night begins," we should
become more and more charitable in our judgment
of motives, but our perceptions of right and wrong
ought not to become dimmed, nor should we be
deterred from expressing them by the knowledge
that, being human, they must needs be imperfect,
and may, after all, be coloured or distorted by
influences invisible to ourselves.

CONTENTS

CHAPTEE V

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD (1854-1856)

^ PAGE

Remarkable characters in Oxford fifty years ago— Successes of
my later Oxford career— Encsenia of 1855— Election to a
Fellowship at Merton College— Reminiscences of the Merton
Common-room— Bishop Patteson — Experience of coaching . 103

CHAPTEE VI

READING FOR THE BAR THE WESTERN CIRCUIT (1856-1862)

Reading for the Bar in the chambers of E. Bullen and Lord
Coleridge — Reminiscences of the Western Circuit— Lord
Bowen — Defence of a prisoner charged with murder —
Lord Campbell and Dr. Lushington . . . .116

CHAPTEE VII

JOURNALISM (1860-1873)

Reviews and leading articles — Mr. Delane— Anonymous journal-
ism — Variety of subjects treated — Duty of a journalist —
Life of a journalist — Public-spirited conduct of the Times . 129

CHAPTEE VIII

ELECTION CONTESTS.
WOODSTOCK (1868 AND 1874) MONMOUTHSHIRE (1880)

Overtures from constituencies — First contest at Woodstock — Elec-
tion address — Village meetings — The hustings — Invitation
from Evesham — Second contest at Woodstock — Lord Ran-
dolph Churchill — Contest in Monmouthshire . • I47

CHAPTER IX

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS

Waste of power on Commissions — Commission on treatment of
Fenian prisoners — O'Donovan Rossa — Demeanour of Fenians
— Oxford University Commission — Its results — London Uni-
versity Commission . . . . . .162

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTEK X

FAMILY EVENTS (1854-1893)
LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON (1873-1880)
IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON SOCIETY

PAGE

Family events — My father's later career and death — Life in Lon-
don—Literary work — London School Board — Royal Geogra-
phical Society — Geographical Club — Sir Henry Rawlinson —
Joseph Arch — My Essays published by the Cobden Club —
" English Land and English Landlords " — Further overtures
from constituencies — Impressions of London society — Recent
changes in moral sentiments, manners, and fashions . -175

CHAPTEE XI

SEXCENTENARY OP MBBTON COLLEGE (1874)
IMPRESSIONS OF CAMBRIDGE

Sexcentenary of Merton College — Peterhouse — Contrasts be-
tween Oxford and Cambridge ..... 208

CHAPTER XII

IMPRESSIONS OF SOME POLITICAL AND LITERARY CHARACTERS

Reminiscences of statesmen — Mr. Gladstone's first Cabinet — Lord
Granville, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Cardwell, Mr. John Bright, Mr.
Eorster, Lord Selborne, Mr. Gladstone — Reminiscences of
other eminent men, John Stuart Mill, Henry Fawcett, Free-
man, Froude, Matthew Arnold, Huxley, Archbishop Tait,
Cardinal Manning, Dean Stanley, Sir Andrew Clark— Par-
liamentary, pulpit, and platform eloquence . . .218

CHAPTER XIII

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES

Tours in Europe — Voyage to America— Travelling in America
—Visit to Lord Dufferin at Ottawa— Letter to the Ti-mes on
the Canadian Pacific Railway and the political crisis in
Canada— Experience of voyages in public steam- vessels and
private yachts ..••■•■ ^72

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIV

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND

PAGE

Charms of English scenery— The most beautiful districts in
England— Riding-tours and driving-tours — Hints for tra-
vellers on horseback — English hotels, and maps — Tours
in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland — Braemar —
Raasay .....•■• 298

CHAPTER XV

IBELAND

Visits to Ireland — Study of the Irish Land Question — Remi-
niscences of the Vice-Regal Lodge — The " Castle-system " —
Phcenix Park murders — Their influence on the Home Rule
movement — My own contributions to Unionist organisation
and literature — " Plain Facts about Ireland " — The Irish
Local Government Act — Effect of the Home Rule movement
on political friendships . . . . .318

CHAPTER XVI

OXFOBD AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Election to "Wardenship of Merton— Educational and Social
changes at Oxford between 1850 and 1881 — Increase of
"ladies' society," claim of degrees for women, growth of
specialism, mitigation of party-spirit, legislative weakness
of the University— Position and duties of a Head of a
College — Character of modern undergraduates . . 339

CHAPTER XVII

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK (1881-1899)

Literary work at Merton— Articles and addresses on Socialism
-Service on the City Council of Oxford— Experience of
magistrates' work— The Governing Body of Eton College . 377

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTEE XVIII

APPBARANOB BBFOEB THE SPECIAL COMMISSION (1889)

PAGE

Foundation of the "Oxford University Unionist League" — My
Presidential address — Motion against me before the Special
(Parnell) Commission for contempt of Court alleged to be
committed in a passage of this address — My appearance and
affidavit — Dismissal of the case — Lord Bramwell's Letter
— Memorial from Oxford friends . . . -396

CHAPTER XIX

RETEOSPBOT AND PROSPECT

Fallacies of forecasts — Temptations of optimism in retrospect —

Ground for a hopeful view of the national health . .411

Memories and Impressions

CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL
1831-1843

My parents — Castle Eising — Life in a Norfolk parsonage sixty or
seventy years ago — Old Hunstanton — School-room education —
Glimpses of public events — Life at private tutors' — Early remi-
niscences of travelling.

I WAS born on May 5, 1831, at the Rectory, Castle
Eising, four miles from Lynn, in Norfolk, being the
second son of the Rev. William John Brodrick, then
Rector of Castle Rising, and afterwards the seventh
Viscount Midleton. My paternal grandfather, the
Archbishop of Cashel, was younger brother of the
fourth Viscount Midleton, whose third daughter (by
his second marriage) was my mother. My parents,
therefore, were first cousins, and, as my mother's
only brother and four sisters died without children,
I soon found that I had a smaller circle of relations
than most of my friends. I was chiefly brought up
with my eldest brother, the present Viscount Midle-
ton, sixteen months older than myself ; my next two
brothers, Charles and Henry, died respectively at the

A

2 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

ages of sixteen and thirty-nine ; my sister, Harriet, is
living unmarried at Eichmond ; my youngest brother,
Alan, is Eector of Alverstoke and Honorary Canon of
Winchester.

No one can adequately measure what he owes to
his parents, but I have never doubted that I was
indebted to mine for whatever moral and religious
principles became part of my character. My father
was certainly the most consistently devout Christian
and the most perfect gentleman that I have ever
known. He was a man of delicate physique, but
above six feet high, and of dignified presence, with
a singularly winning gentleness of voice and bearing.
My mother absolutely shared his faith, and followed
his example in practice ; nor do I believe that their
married life was ever disturbed by the least shade of
discord. Both had imbibed at an early age the
Evangelical tenets of Wilberforce and Simeon, but
my father was far too moderate in opinions, and far
too Catholic in spirit, to be an extreme Low Church-
man. His Evangelicalism consisted in a heartfelt
conviction that Christ is the one mediator between
God and the human soul ; that conscious union with
Christ is the one great secret and end of the Gospel ;
that such union is only to be realised by prayer and
the aid of the Holy Spirit ; and that no external
agencies of Churches, Ministers, or Ordinances, have
any Divine authority- or spiritual value, except so far
as they are instruments for the propagation and
confirmation of personal religion. From this posi-
tion he never swerved, and though he lived to recog-

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 3

nise much good, if not in the High Church movement,
yet in the devotion of many who followed it, he
died a firm believer in the Evangelical creed.

Castle Rising was, in some respects, a model
country village, and its Eectory was just such a
home as has sent forth many a hardworking youth
to render good service in Church or State ; indeed,
Nelson himself was nurtured in a parsonage in
the same neighbourhood. The great feature of the
parish is the keep of a fine old Norman castle, in
which Isabella, the wicked mother of Edward III.,
was confined for many years ; surrounded with other
ruins, and some of the highest and boldest artificial
mounds to be seen in England. From these mounds,
there called the Castle Hills, there was an extensive
view of the Wash, and a large tract of salt-marshes
reclaimed from the sea and protected by embank-
ments. On stormy nights it was not uncommon for
the inhabitants of parishes owning such land to be
summoned hastily, for the purpose of preventing or
repairing breaches in the sea wall. The church, too,
is an excellent specimen of later Norman architecture,
resembling in type the well-known church at IfHey,
near Oxford. Close by is an almshouse of the reign
of James I., which still retains its original character;
as well as an interesting Hall of later date, recently
tenanted by the Duke of Fife, but then occupied for
two or three months of the year by Colonel and Mrs.
Howard, the kindly and munificent proprietors of
the village. Strange to say, though it contained but
300 or 400 inhabitants, it had continued to be a

4 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

borough — and, of course, a pocket-borough — until
it was disfranchised by the first Eeform Act. My
father always believed that at the last election before
that event he was the only legal voter, and that,
although several other votes were actually received,
they would all have been struck off on a scrutiny.
The newly-elected members were bound to undergo
the ceremony of "chairing," and were regularly
" tossed " at a particular spot, afterwards proved to
be the site of the old village cross, the base of
which was discovered a foot or two below the surface.
Besides the Castle, the Church, the "hospital," the
parish school, and the inevitable public-house, the
village consisted of a very few substantial farm-
houses, and a number of comfortable though primi-
tive cottages, often visited by Mrs. Howard as well
as by my parents, and chiefly inhabited by farm-
labourers and workpeople employed at a neighbouring
mill. There was no meeting-house, and little, if any
Dissent ; most of the villagers attended church dili-
gently, and sent their children to school long before
any one dreamed of compulsory education. My
mother, as well as my father, was assiduous in
befriending the poor, and the remembrance of their
example, by no means singular, would be quite
enough to disabuse one of the untenable notion that
devotion to parochial duties was a lesson first taught
by the "Oxford Movement."

In the days of my childhood our corner of
Norfolk, though far more accessible than many parts
of England, was very much out of the world, accord-

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 5

ing to modern ideas. Lynn was, of course, our local
metropolis, and Lynn itself, within one hundred
miles of London, was practically farther removed
from it than Edinburgh or Dublin is now. The
single day-coach which traversed this road, and
which in 1830 had to be dug out of the snow, took
twelve hours in accomplishing the journey. The
two well-known coachmen. Walker and Cross, ex-
changed vehicles at Cambridge, each driving out
and home the same day. The occupants of post-
chaises travelled more slowly, and either journeyed
from dawn to dusk on a summer's day, or slept at
Cambridge, at the Bull Inn. Every hostelry on the
road had its character. It was, I think, at Royston
that an old Tory, having stopped at an inn kept by
a Reformer, and ascertained that the waiter's politics
were of the same colour, indignantly exclaimed, on
paying his reckoning without the customary douceur,
" Then, sir, there is the bill, the whole bill, and
nothing but the bill." The change at Lynn, from
the waving corn-fields which covered the fens in
spring, or the huge stacks which dotted the horizon
in autumn, to the breezy uplands of North-west
Norfolk, was at once startling and picturesque.
Along the shores of the Wash and the North Sea
rare sea-birds were blown inland with every heavy
gale, and the bustard was not yet extinct upon the
lonely tracts of common. The heaths which fringe
the road between Lynn and Hunstanton, with a
village every two miles, and a church usually cap-
able of holding all its inhabitants, looked pleasant

6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

enough in summer, but were swept in winter and
spring by the bleakest of winds charged with snowy
particles from the ice-fields of Norway, which Coke
of Holkham used to claim as his nearest neighbour.
Sandringham lies about midway, but was not yet
imparked, and was then owned by a West Indian
Nabob.

The graphic descriptions of village life in East
Anglia by the author of " A ready in the Twenties"
are applicable, with little variation, to the succeeding
decade. Judged by existing standards, it was sadly
rough and hopelessly dull. Wages were low, prices
were high, and work was not always plentiful. Edu-
cation was in its infancy, and such village schools as
existed would now be regarded as utterly inefiicient.
There were labourers whose whole life had been spent
within half-a-dozen miles of Lynn, but who had only
seen their market-town once or twice on special busi-
ness. Notices of the requirements of the Parish
authorities were constantly given out in church by
the clerk, without his considering it necessary to
inform the parson of his intention to do so. The
parson himself had often little regard for appear-
ances, and would sometimes change his surplice for
his preaching -gown before the whole congregation
without repairing to the vestry — if, indeed, there
was a vestry. The churches were miserably kept,
and some of the clergy were more sportsmen than
pastors, owing their livings to patrons who cared
little for the spiritual interests of their dependants.
One such parson was seen to arise from his knees in

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 7

the midst of the general Confession in order to make
a respectful obeisance to the squire, who happened
to enter the family pew somewhat late. Many like
stories were told, but I must add, in fairness, not
only that my own father was a pattern of clerical
dignity, but that I heard — perhaps was allowed to
hear — nothing but good of the neighbouring clergy
who resorted to our house. Probably in respect of
birth, and even of University education, the rural
clergy of those days were at least the equals of their
successors, for the gravitation of the ablest and most
zealous young curates into London and other great
towns had not then begun.

The fact is that, sixty years ago, the ideal of
clerical duty was very different from that which now
prevails. Not only may it be said that evangelical
"faith" counted for more and ritualistic "works"
for less than in a modern parish, but the "priest"
had not yet taken the place of the "minister," less
concerned for the interests of his order than for the
spiritual and temporal welfare of his parishioners.
There is much truth in the language of a writer in
the Church Gazette: "It might be that the clergy
did not then hold so many services in the churches,
or attend so many retreats, or study mediaeval litur-
gies and rituals as is now the case ; yet they took
part, and a leading part, in every movement for the
good of the people, not as a class apart, but as being
of the nation itself. It is true, too, that they dressed
more like professional men than priests, and they,
with their families, formed part of the life of every

8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

village and town. They were scholars, they were
gentlemen, and they were trusted by all. It cannot
be denied that these very qualities which made
them of value to the State incurred the opposition
of Newman and his followers of the Oxford Move-
ment. The horizon of the clerical mind has since
been curtailed, and the very name National Church
is unpopular with the clergy." One side of this
view was pithily expressed by an old gamekeeper
at Castle Rising, in a conversation with myself on
the character of a High Church Rector. " Sir, he
don't care if there's no God and no Bible, so long
as there's a parson, and a Prayer - Book, and a
Church." If that Protestant gamekeeper were now
alive, he might be further shocked to observe that
Ritualistic practices are no longer restricted by the
injunctions of the Prayer-Book.

The daily life at the Hall, as well as the Rectory,
was then simple and monotonous. The servants were
chiefly drawn from the neighbourhood, which also
supplied all the domestic wants, and many of the
domestic comforts, then known to owners of country
houses. For most of them a visit to London was a
rare and memorable event. Year in and year out
they lived at home, receiving near relations on visits
measured by weeks together, walking up their own
game with the aid of pointers, and shooting with
clumsy muzzle-loaders, attending Quarter Sessions,
and occasionally meeting their neighbours in the
larger market-towns, where the clergy, too, some-
times assembled for ecclesiastical or missionary

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 9

gatherings. Merry-makings and social reunions were
few and far between ; garden-parties, with the attrac-
tions of croquet and lawn tennis, had not been in-
vented, while school treats and village entertainments
were very rare. I can well remember one such being
given on a grand scale by Colonel and Mrs. Howard,
to celebrate the Queen's coronation, when fireworks
were displayed from the Castle Hills, and a squabble
took place between the inhabitants of two villages
over the partition of roast beef which is reported to
have been revived by their descendants at a Jubilee-
feast in 1897. In those parts, and in those days,
the village-carrier was often the sole vehicle of news
to cottagers, for letters cost tenpence a piece, and
often remained exposed for weeks in the window of
the local post-office, because those whose addresses
they bore shrank from the expense of claiming them.
Though Castle Eising was a healthy village, I have no
doubt the mortality there would now be reckoned high,
since there was no provision for drainage or water-
supply. Nursing was an unknown art in country
districts, and the Lynn doctors used to drive about
equipped with medicine chests and cases of surgical
instruments, equally prepared for "the fever" or for
injuries requiring amputation — of course, without the
use of anaesthetics. Soon after my own birth, the
cholera had scourged a village four miles oS, but a
sanitary cordon was said to have been maintained
round Castle Rising by labourers armed with pitch-
forks. The great epidemic of influenza swept over
Norfolk, as it did over the rest of the country, in

lo MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

1837, and we all suffered from it. This is sometimes
described as its first appearance in England, but
erroneously, for it is mentioned by name as prevail-
ing in the last century. The importance of re-
vaccination was fully realised even by my parents,
who had themselves been inoculated, and, as there
was a good deal of smallpox about, I was subjected
to it at the age of seven.

My first sight of the sea was at the village of Old
Hunstanton, the only seaside watering-place, if it
could be called so, within easy reach of Castle Rising.
Here there was but one regular lodging-house, the
property of a Lynn clergyman, and the accommoda-
tion was so primitive and scanty that one of us
children was reported to have been put to bed in a
chest of drawers. I think it is scarcely realised by
the present generation how modern seaside watering-
places actually are. In the last century few people
took summer holidays, except in the form of an occa-
sional " day off," like Johnny Gilpin, or cared much
for change of air or scene, except for the purpose of
enjoying hospitality or drinking waters. Bath, Tun-
bridge Wells, Buxton, Harrogate, and other inland
" Spas " had long been fashionable sanatoriums, but
there must have been thousands of invalids who
could not bear long journeys to such health-resorts
before railways so vastly reduced the fatigue of travel-
ling. Meanwhile, seaports and coast towns, with their
squalid lodging-houses clustered round a narrow inlet
receiving all the drainage, were not unjustly avoided
by health-seekers as the very reverse of salubrious.

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL ii

Scarborough was among the earliest of marine summer
quarters, and was patronised by North country people
in the middle of the last century. Smollett, in
"Humphry Clinker," couples it and " Brighthelm-
stone" with "Bristol-Well," Tunbridge, and " Har-
rowgate," as places to which visitors took flight
after the end of the Bath season, which seems to
have lasted until May. Eamsgate and Margate
were already frequented by Londoners, while Cromer,
Yarmouth, and Southend probably came into note
somewhat later. Most ports and towns on the
South Coast were quite neglected by fashion, until
George III. brought Weymouth into vogue, with
the result that some attention was paid to sani-
tary requirements. In due course, Hastings, Worth-
ing, Bognor, the Isle of Wight, and the Devonshire
coast towns claimed their share of popularity ; but our
grandfathers and great-grandfathers went to the sea-
side for the sake of pleasure and sea-bathing rather
than of health. How they could have enjoyed or
amused themselves at such a place as Hunstanton
then was, is a question not easy to answer. On the
other hand, it is strange that while scores, or perhaps
hundreds, of seaside watering-places are nowadays
thronged with visitors (some attracted by golf-links),
there are so few inland health-resorts frequented
mainly for the sake of bracing air, rather than
of mineral waters. Buxton alone combines the
air of a high plateau with its celebrated baths,
and is the only town in Great Britain of which
it can be said that, of six excellent roads leading

12 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

out of it, only one fails to attain the height of
1500 feet.

As we left Castle Rising when I was eight years
old, my recollections of our life there, and, still
more, my impressions of public events, are inevitably
meagre, but they are perfectly distinct. We were
brought up simply and sensibly under the kindest
of parents, but rather strictly, and without that sensi-
tive regard for our comfort and enjoyment which is
now the lot of childhood in the upper classes. Our
health was carefully watched, yet we certainly were
not coddled ; for instance, we never wore woollen
underclothing, and I did not adopt a " flannel waist-
coat" until I was eleven, or my brother, until he
suffered from an attack of pleurisy in his sixteenth
year. Our amusements were few, and were rigor-
ously prohibited on Sundays ; but our lesson-hours
were not long, and were judiciously distributed —
two hours in the morning, and one and a half in the
afternoon. Happily, our governess was an excellent
old-fashioned teacher, blissfully ignorant of " pseda-
gogy" and educational specialism, but thoroughly
grounded herself, and capable of thoroughly ground-
ing children, in reading, writing, arithmetic, geo-
graphy, English history, and the knowledge of
"common things." The result was that, although
neither of us was precocious or specially clever, and
no attempt was made to cram or force us, we had
attained a standard in these subjects, before I went
to school at the age of eight, which some people
think it unreasonable to expect from children of

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 13

eleven or twelve in Board and Voluntary Schools.

Our father taught us Latin himself, and we both

acquired, without conscious eflfort, a familiarity with

the Bible which made Biblical lessons perfectly easy

to us at school and college. Nor was this instruction

chiefly directed to inform our minds : from our

earliest years the New Testament was set before us

as the one rule of conduct, and the love of Jesus

Christ as the one refuge of the soul in time of trouble

or temptation. Perhaps, under such teaching, we may

have taken a more serious view of life than was quite

natural for children, but my conviction is that its

good effects far outweighed this incidental drawback.

Field sports were unknown to us, and we had few

juvenile playmates ; but we enjoyed gardening, kept

guinea-pigs and other pets, were sometimes taken on

long drives, and, as we grew older, learned to ride

ponies without stirrups — a practice, however, which

I deprecate as too rough a discipline for beginners.

Of course, Lynn, with its Grey Friars' tower and
two fine churches, was the nearest place of interest, but
one of our expeditions was along the coast to Wells
and Blakeney, another to Houghton, the grandeur of
which naturally made it my ideal of a country house
for years afterwards. Every year, too, until 1836,
we posted up to London (104 miles), closely packed
in the family chariot, on our way to Peper Harow,
near Godalming, the residence of our maternal grand-
father. Lord Midleton. I can remember every stage
on the road, especially Ely and Cambridge, the con-
stant excitement of changing horses, and the inter-

14 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

minable approacli to London through avenues of
suburban gardens. There we always slept for one
or two nights at my grandfather's house in Upper
Brook Street, and were taken for walks into Hyde
Park, or the sacred enclosure of Grosvenor Square,
which I have never entered since. My chief reminis-
cences of London, more than sixty years ago, are the
Zoological Gardens, the Babel of London cries, and
the dull rumble of the streets at night, which sounded
very strange to a child from the country. It was
not until later that I came to identify London cabs,
which first ran in 1823, or omnibuses, which date
from 1829, but I have a very early recollection of
the old hackney coaches. Then came the journey to
Peper Harow (thirty-six miles), with four horses for
the last stage, crowned by the vision of grander
surroundings and new scenery. Once, in 1835, we
travelled into Surrey through Brighton, where the
Chain Pier, recently erected, was considered a wonder
of the world. In 1836, during our stay at Peper
Harow, my grandfather died, and his widow, the
Dowager Lady Midleton, took a house at Snettisham,
seven miles from Castle Rising on the road to Hun-
stanton. One of my aunts who lived with her
delighted in long walks, and Ken Hill, which is still
known to visitors from Hunstanton, then seemed to
me an earthly Paradise. Indeed, Wordsworth him-
self might have been satisfied with the multitude
of childish ideas and dreamy fancies which floated
across my brain in this first passion for natural
scenery, but never found expression in poetry. Soon

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 15

afterwards, Sir Edward Parry, the great Arctic
navigator, settled at Congham, four miles from Castle
Rising in the opposite direction, and became an
intimate friend of my father. His son, the late
Bishop of Dover, was the earliest of my own friends,
and remained one of my truest friends until the day
of his death.

My first recollections of events outside our family
circle date from the reign of William IV. One is
that of witnessing a review in Hyde Park, before
the Duke of Wellington, from the top of a house in
Connaught Place. Another is that of being taken to
Gaywood, near Lynn, to see the present Queen, then
Princess Victoria, with her mother, passing in car-
riages from Lynn to Holkham, on one of the few
visits which she paid before she ascended the throne.
The news of the King's death arrived on one of the
hottest days in the hot summer of 1837. The general
election which followed was memorable in the annals
of Norfolk as that in which the Tory squires first
broke the power of the great Whig house at Holk-
ham, and succeeded in returning their candidates,
Sir William Bagge and Mr. Chute, against the Whig
nominees. Sir William Ffoulkes and Sir Jacob Astley.
I was decked out in blue rosettes, by way of wearing
Tory colours, and, placed on a wall, saw the Hun-
stanton voters brought up in a body on the Lynn
road, headed by the estate-steward. For the farmers
of those days, though despots over their labourers,
never thought of disputing the authority of their land-
lords in politics. Two or three of the less intelligent,

1 6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

having been vigorously canvassed by a neighbouring
clergyman's wife, tendered their votes at the poll
for Mrs. Barnes, and were surprised at their rejection.
The next year was the year of the great frost, of the
great eclipse {which I saw through smoked glass),
and of the rebellion in Canada, succeeded by the
Chartist riots, which lasted through a great part of
1839. Eeports of both these events reached our
schoolroom, but our political ideas, however sound,
were crude in the extreme. I hope it was neither of
my parents who informed me, in answer to some
inquiry, that the Kadicals were the wickedest of
mankind; that so long as the Duke of Wellington
lived they might probably be kept in some kind of
order, but that after his death there was no telling
what mischief they might perpetrate — a prediction
which some may think was not wholly futile. On
another occasion, having asked the difference between
Whigs and Tories, I was met by the reply that Tories
were people who held that God made the King,
whereas the Whigs held that the people made the
King— an opinion which, interpreted by my childish
intellect, naturally seemed little short of blasphemy.
In the summer of 1839 my father accepted the
Eectory of Bath, and before moving thither in the
autumn, he took my brother and myself to a private
tutor's at Penn, near Beaconsfield, This was our
first experience of railway travelling, for the Great
Western line already extended as far as Taplow
Station, ten miles from Penn. I can remember
the completion of each additional link, as Twyford,

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 17

Reading, and Wootton Bassett successively became
its western terminus, until tlie line from Bristol to
Bath, opened in 1840, was extended eastward
through the Box tunnel. What chiefly struck me
in my first journeys by rail was that objects looked
smaller from a railway carriage than from a coach,
and that cattle in the fields scampered about in
terror on the approach of a train. Perhaps heredi-
tary experience in men and animals has corrected
both these illusions. In going home for our first
holidays, we travelled from Reading to Bath in a
slow pair-horse coach, through Marlborough Forest,
in which traditions of highway robbery still lingered,
and past the great barrow of Silbury, which did not
fail to impress even our childish minds. This coach
was called the " Star," and bore on its panel the
name of Moses Pickwick, which Dickens borrowed
for the appellation of his immortal hero. People
now idealise coaches, but those who had experience
of them must admit the infinite superiority, as
regards comfort and roominess, not only of the
modern first-class, but of the modern third-class
railway carriage, to the inside of the very best stage-
coach, and the infinite superiority of modern railway
carriages to any known in 1840. An article by Mr.
W. M. Acworth on " Infant Railways," in Murray's
Magazine for 1887, contains a great deal of interest-
ing information on this subject, which entirely tallies
with my own recollection. Now and then a specimen
of an antique first-class carriage may be seen on a
branch railway, but the oldest type of all must

1 8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

have long since disappeared, with each compartment
painted so as to resemble the form of a coach, and
the roof provided with straps to secure the pas-
sengers' luggage. As for the outside of a coach,
which has so often been depicted in glowing colours,
and has been copied with improvements in the
modern drag, it was no doubt pleasant enough when
the weather was neither too hot nor too cold, nor
too rainy nor too dusty, but utterly miserable, for
instance, in a winter snow-storm, especially as tra-
velling-rugs had not been invented, and outside
passengers were sometimes glad to hire sacks filled
with hay to keep their feet tolerably warm. I have
often been amused by the anxious inquiries of old-
fashioned hosts about the health of guests arriving
after a journey of two or three hours in a comfort-
able first-class carriage, but such inquiries were
natural and significant enough in the good old days
of coaching.

The first view of Bath, with its rows and crescents
of gas-lamps running up and encircling the surround-
ing hUls, was a sight never to be forgotten ; its busy
streets were full of indescribable interest to boys
reared in the country, and it was sad work going
back to Penn. This village stands high among the
beech-woods of Buckinghamshire, commanding a fine
view of Windsor Castle, but many of the noble trees
which used to excite our admiration have long since
been converted into Windsor chairs. We remained
there for a year, kindly treated on the whole, but
miserably taught ; indeed, I may say that for three

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 19

years after I left the hands of my governess, I seem
to have made no appreciable progress in any branch
of knowledge but Latin and Greek, and very little in
those. Hardly any attempt was made to render the
process of learning easy or pleasant, and while " cribs"
were happily unknown, the barbarous practice still
prevailed of teaching Latin by the slavish aid of a
grammar written in that very language. It was
long before it dawned upon me that grammar, after
all, is a paedagogic invention, entirely unknown to
the great masters of classical literature, but actually
intended to explain the construction, and govern the
composition, of Latin or Greek sentences. I am
indebted to a Brighton tutor for having enabled
me to discover a similar purpose in the Propria qucB
Maribus and the As in prsesenti, which I com-
mitted to memory, and thenceforth applied, with
tolerable success, in preparing my exercises. During
our stay at Penn the penny-post was introduced,
and I find that I recorded, in a childish letter, the
pleasure which it gave us to know that we could now
write home much oftener. There were several houses
in the village occupied by retired people of the
middle class, who, in these days, mostly flock into
towns. In many of the cottages lace-making was
carried on as a domestic industry, and I have never
understood why so many of these domestic industries
should now be abandoned. In the summer of 1840,
we were transferred to Launton near Bicester, and
placed under the charge of the Rev. James Blom-
field, a brother of the well-known scholar, then

20 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Bishop of London. Mr. Blomfield was a sound
and sensible, but not an inspiring teacher, and I
really think I cared more for his occasional lectures
on electricity or the air-pump than for his daily
instruction in Latin and Greek authors. After our
first term at Launton, we travelled by coach to
Bath from Oxford, where John Henry Newman was
pointed out to us in the streets as a celebrity. After-
wards we used to drive from Bath to Wootton
Bassett, or whatever happened to be the nearest
station on the Great Western line, and to approach
Oxford by coach from Steventon, never ceasing to
admire the splendid view of the city from the Bagley
AVood. Once, in passing through the city at an
election time, I saw Langston and Wood, the suc-
cessful candidates, actually " chaired " along High
Street. In the spring of 1842, Mr. Blomfield moved
to an Essex living in the gift of the Bishop, and we
became pupils of the Eev. Edmund Pears, at Whit-
church Canonicorum, between Lyme Regis and
Bridport. Here we had no fellow-pupils, and con-
sidering our experience at Penn and Launton, I do
not know that we lost much in the want of com-
panionship. Judging from his own experience, my
father had a strong feeling against private schools,
which may have been then well founded, but I
cannot doubt that a good modern preparatory school
is preferable, on the whole, to Penn or Launton.
The country about Whitchurch was far more pic-
turesque than the country about Launton, and I
specially enjoyed picnic excursions to Ford Abbey

EARLY LIFE AT HOME AND SCHOOL 21

and the great landslip beyond Lyme, then a new
feature. Though I cannot say that I was happy
under Mr. Pears, I began to feel a rudimentary
taste for scholarship, which he encouraged, and
which found vent in satirical Latin verses of a juve-
nile type. It is some proof of Mr. Pears's success
in teaching that, whereas in the summer of 1842 my
brother and I, being examined at Eton, were pro-
nounced hardly fit for the Fourth Form, in January
1843 both of us were pronounced fit for the
" Remove," although, in accordance with a time-
honoured rule, I was placed in the division next
below the Remove.

CHAPTER II

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS

1843-1848

" Eton in the Forties "—School morals and school-teaching— Life in
boarding-houses, games, and boyish self-government — "Pop" and
" Cellar" — " Montem " — Royal visits — Newcastle scholarship-
Review of the Eton system — Bath in the early years of the Queen's
reign — Summer excursions.

My entrance into Eton was the real turning-point
in my boyhood, and has influenced the whole course
of my after life. When I first set foot in the
School-yard, and was awed by the brave array of
young fellows with the airs of masters rather than of
boys, I distinctly realised that I was launched upon
the great world, and must henceforth be the guardian
of my own character and powers. We became pupils
and boarders of Mr. Goodford, afterwards Head-
master and Provost, the " captain " (or head boy) of
whose house was our first-cousin, the late Dr. Scott
of Westminster. Though not equal to modern re-
quirements, it was a well-built house compared with
others, and if the most untiring industry on the
part of my tutor, coupled with a high and con-
scientious sense of duty, could have made it a good
house from a moral point of view, it would assuredly
have been so. Truth, however, compels me to say

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 23

that it by no means deserved this name, chiefly
because, unknown to my tutor, it then contained
a set of boys, about half-way up the school, whose
language and conduct were eminently calculated
to corrupt their juniors, and who, to say the least,
were not controlled by their seniors. I am not one
of those who believe that, until society becomes
Christian in a sense never realised since the early
days of Christianity, perfect gentleness, or purity,
or virtue, can be expected from boys at the age of
adolescence, and allowed to mingle together with
the utmost freedom. But I have never ceased to
think it a sin and a shame, a blot on our public-
school system, and an outrage on the better feelings
of youth, that a degree of brutality in thought, word,
and deed, which would not be tolerated in family life,
and which is condemned by the individual con-
science, should be fostered, generation after genera-
tion, by the gregarious sentiment of boyish com-
munities. True it is that a strange and subtle
instinct of honour and public spirit, if not a sense
of dignity, underlay at Eton the unwritten code of
false morality which often quenched self-respect,
and might have seemed equally inconsistent with
respect for the rights of others. It is also true that
many who had gone through this slough, not of
despond but of humiliation, emerged from it almost
unscathed, and, without evincing any special re-
morse or penitence, grew into manly and even
exemplary characters. Still, they must have forfeited
the lifelong blessing of conscious innocence, and

24 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

ought at least to liave deeply regretted the injury
which they had done to others. However, what-
ever its moral shortcomings, life in an Oppidan
boarding-house was then a school of courtesy, if
compared with the licensed barbarism of " College,"
well described by Mr. Arthur Coleridge, an old
Colleger, in a racy volume entitled "Eton in the
Forties." Probably report exaggerated the horrors
of "Long Chamber," but assuredly the reality was
bad enough, and was an excuse, though not a
justification, for a contempt in which the Oppidans
held the so-called "tugs" (togati), or Collegers, on
the foundation.

Much has been said lately of the reforms ori-
ginated by Dr. Hawtrey in the early days of his
Head-mastership, and Mr. A. D. Coleridge has done
well to borrow from Maxwell Lyte's volume the
masterly summary of his merits and services con-
tributed by William Johnson. Yet the Eton system,
in all its essential features, remained very much
what it had been in my father's days, above thirty
years before, and, in some respects, had altered little
since the reign of James I. All the masters had
been Collegers, and Provost Hodgson vetoed the
appointment by Dr. Hawtrey of Mr Goldwin Smith,
perhaps the most brilliant Etonian scholar of his
time, on the sole ground that he had been an
Oppidan, and was a graduate of Oxford. Not only
so, but all the masters, except one, had been edu-
cated at Cambridge, and all of these, but one, at
King's College, Cambridge. In other words, the

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 25

greatest school in England was manned by a staff
of masters almost exclusively trained in a close
backwater of Eton itself, outside the main stream
of Etonian life, and in a close backwater of Cam-
bridge, outside the main stream of University life.
The wonder is that, in spite of this, nearly all of
them were fair scholars, and even well-bred gentlemen.
The divisions were of enormous size, sometimes con-
sisting of eighty boys ; and, as the school lessons
seldom lasted much above half an hour, only a very
small minority of these could possibly be "called up,"
or tested in their work. Hence the necessity of re-
quiring all junior boys to attend a preliminary " con-
struing " in their tutor's pupil-room, and of requiring
all exercises to be looked over and corrected by
tutors before being shown up in school. A very few
of the form-masters, like Mr. Carter (the present
Bursar), succeeded by great energy in keeping order,
and even in fostering a spirit of emulation among the
boys "up to" them; but, as a rule, the form-teaching
was very ineffective, and the more so because, in
accordance with a strange Eton custom, the lesson,
short as it was, did not begin at a fixed hour. The
examination-test, especially necessary at Eton, where
so little surveillance is exercised, was most sparingly
and feebly applied. Hardly any one was kept down
for idleness, or granted a " double remove " for pro-
ficiency, and a boy's place in school was settled for
ever by an examination which I, for one, passed in my
fourteenth year, soon after entering the fifth form.
Our text-books were thoroughly antiquated; our Greek

26 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and Latin grammars were themselves much harder
to construe than simple Latin authors ; our lexicons
were most inadequate, and, since boys were allowed
to compose their verses and "themes" in their own
room, it followed inevitably that many of them used
" old copies," or got these precious compositions
manufactured by others. It is credibly recorded
of Mr. Cookesley — who, in spite of a tendency to
buffoonery, was an inspiring teacher — that he ad-
dressed a remarkably stupid boy in the following
terms : " I tell you what it is, sir, if you ever show
me up a copy of your own verses again, I'll put you
in the bill" (an Etonian euphemism for a capital
sentence). " Why, a great strong fellow like you
can have no difficulty in getting a decent copy of
verses written for him, and if you ever again bring
me one of your own concoction, I'll have you flogged."
Nevertheless, though books were read for the sake
of their style rather than of their contents, though
ancient history was hardly studied, and though clas-
sical archaeology had scarcely been invented, there
were masters who, even in their form-teaching, dis-
played and imparted to a select few a genuine love
of classical literature, still more a capacity of pro-
ducing Latin and Greek compositions, far above the
level of their attainments in the study of that litera-
ture. If I may be allowed to quote my own example,
as that of a boy singularly ill equipped with the
knowledge to be expected of a young scholar, I may
perhaps mention the fact that, at the age of fourteen
and a half, I wrote, as a holiday task, a short but

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 27

original Greek play on the glory and downfall of
Croesus ; nor was I the only boy in that part of the
school who attempted this Quixotic task. At that
period I had read but one Greek tragedy, and com-
posed but two copies of Greek iambics ; I knew
nothing of choric metres, and was innocent of any
views on the dramatic unities. Yet it never struck
me as presumptuous to undertake what had only
been proposed as a counsel of perfection for the best
scholars in the highest forms, and I solved the
metrical difficulty by copying, foot by foot, choruses
of Sophocles, which I then read for the first time.
It should be added that several, if not most, tutors
supplemented the shortcomings of the form-teaching
by "private business," as it was called, with their
own pupils. My own tutor, in particular, was most
assiduous in thus coaching his own more advanced
pupils, and I remember that, when several of us were
candidates for the Newcastle Scholarship, he lectured
us privately for two hours in the week on Demos-
thenes De Corond, and for one hour on the Agamem-
non of ^schylus, besides practising us each week in
Greek iambics and Greek prose, without the aid of
a Lexicon or " Gradus." It may surprise modern
schoolboys, and perhaps some masters, to learn that
nearly all the verses and themes then produced at
Eton were supposed to be original — that is, were
composed by the boy himself (or a cleverer friend)
on a subject propounded by the master ; and that all
the classical passages set in the school trials, as well
as in the examination for the Newcastle Scholarship,

2 8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

were "unseen" passages — that is, were not passages
from selected or prepared books, which a boy with
a good memory can get up to some extent by rote.
Cribs, though not unknown, were certainly but seldom
used.

It would be absurd to describe the life of an
Eton Oppidan between 1843 and 1848 as one of
hardship, especially if it be compared with the school
life of the last century. At the same time, it was
ill suited for a delicate boy, and not many delicate
boys were sent to a public school ; indeed, I have
often wondered that I did not break down earlier
myself For instance, whereas the first school was
at half-past seven — ^and thrice a week at seven for
the fourth form — breakfast could not be had by a
fag in my tutor's house before a quarter past nine,
so that a young boy could not be less than two hours
and a quarter without food after getting out of bed,
unless he procured a hot roll or coffee out of his own
pocket-money. Again, fneither the chapel nor any
one of the schoolrooms was heated in any shape or
form, either by a fireplace, or by hot air, or by hot
water, and it was universally believed that any boy
wearing an overcoat (except at the seven o'clock
lesson) was liable to be flogged. It is possible that
boys may now be coddled too much at school, though
I greatly doubt it, but assuredly that was not the
besetting sin of my time. I believe that in dames'
houses, of which several remained, more care was
taken of their health, but there were very seldom
matrons in tutors' houses, and tutors' wives did not —

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 29

perhaps could not — supply their place. If a boy
had jumped into a ditch, and neglected to change, or
was fighting against the first symptoms of a serious
illness without " staying out," there was no one to
warn him ; and I must say that if the doctor had
been summoned, as Eton doctors then were, very
little might have been gained. For the prevalent
impression certainly was that, whether you had
broken your leg or had caught the scarlet fever,
the preliminary treatment was just the same — an
heroic dose of the nastiest medicine — and that not
until you persisted in complaining of a specific ache
or pain was any attempt made to diagnose your
case. At all events, I am fully convinced that more
than half the ailments from which Eton boys sufi'ered
fifty years ago were entirely preventible, that many
of them were due to gross sanitary defects in the
houses, and that such medical skill as most country
doctors now possess would have saved me from drift-
ing, through a disregard of the most obvious symp-
toms, into a serious illness, which obliged me to leave
Eton early in 1848, and permanently affected my
constitutional vigour.

In those days neither athletic nor aesthetic amuse-
ments had usurped the dominant place in public-school
life which is now conceded to them. Concerts were
all but unknown, and I doubt whether any boy
took lessons in music, though a few had knowledge
enough to enjoy the musical services in the Chapel.
Since music is apt to be cultivated by young men and
boys exclusively at the expense of study, and not of

30 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

other recreations, I am not sure that we lost in this
way more than we gained. It will scarcely be
credited, however, that no Eton master of that day
was known to have been chosen for his prowess on
the river or the cricket-field, and, though such
prowess was certainly a passport to popularity among
the boys, it still ranked below moral and intellectual
superiority in the estimation of their tutors. The
dualism of cricket and rowing was already estab-
lished in the summer half ; very few boys attempted
to excel in both, and, since the Collegers were ex-
cluded from the long-boats, or school navy, they
generally devoted their energies to cricket. As a
proof that rowing was practised vigorously, I may
state, for the information of young Etonians, that
all boat races except one, including the ordinary
house sweepstakes (both pair - oar and sculling),
were rowed from the Brocas " round the Rushes,"
and back to Windsor Bridge — and that, before out-
riggers were invented. Almost every house had its
football club with its own ground, and school games
of football in the field and football at the wall were
as vigorously played as they are now. Hockey was
cultivated by a limited and mostly quiet set of boys ;
racquets were unknown ; and though fives was a
favourite game, it could only be played during my
first three years at Eton in the makeshift courts
between the buttresses of the Chapel. During the
dreary school-time between Christmas and Easter,
appropriated to no game in particular, there were
no beagles to follow across country. Some boys.

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 31

however, indulged in paper-chases, others were not
ashamed to play rounders or prisoner's base, and
even walking for the sake of exercise and friendly
talk had not become a lost art, though it was not
much fancied except on Sundays. Considering how
attractive Windsor Park might have been to boys
fond of natural history or roving about, I have often
wondered that it was not more frequented ; but it
is still more wonderful that Windsor Castle itself
figured in our boyish imaginations rather as a
stately ornament of Eton than as overshadowing
the lowlier College beneath it. During the summer,
most of us delighted in bathing ; it was not un-
common to plunge in two or three times a day, and
I have known an enthusiast achieve a record of five
times a day. A simple but effective system of
teaching boys to swim had been established a year
or two before I went to Eton, and at the same time
it was made a very grave ofi'ence to go out in a boat
without having passed a test before a master, so
practical that I was twice plucked before I satisfied
it. Moreover, at the beginning of each summer
half a "■ non-nant list" was printed, containing the
names of all the boys who had failed to pass in
previous years, and no one cared to see his name
appear twice in this ignominious calendar. The
success of the experiment was certainly most re-
markable, and I believe that since 1841 only one
Eton boy has been drowned at Eton, having been
dragged and kept down by a rope, under circum-
stances against which swimming was no safeguard.

32 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Assuredly, summer days on the river, whether spent
in lounging on eyots, or in vigorous double-sculling
beyond Surley Hall, are among my pleasantest
reminiscences of Eton. Upon the whole, our play-
hours were happily and healthily employed, not the
less so because liberty and equality, as well as
fraternity, in sport were strictly observed. In my
opinion, idling and loafing were not more common
because no game was compulsory. One of Hawtrey's
first acts had been to abolish cricket-fagging, and
the modified form of compulsory football which has
since crept in would have been contrary to our ideas
of Etonian freedom out of school hours. But then,
every one took rank in games according to his
capacity, and not according to his position in school ;
lower boys, as such, were never left to shiver in
goals at football, and the captain of the school, as
such, was no one in the playing fields or on the
river. One relic of the old servitude in games
survived, however, to my own days, in the shape
of fagging behind the fives-courts for the purpose of
throwing up balls. It was an irksome duty to boys
whose hearts were elsewhere, but not more than
half-a-dozen, at most, could be victimised at the
same time.

The absence of any official regulation in games
was, as it still is, a characteristic feature of Eton
life, and rests on a fundamental distinction between
Eton and schools of the Rugby type. In all our
public schools, the principle of self-government is
very fully recognised, and a large share of the

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 33

authority properly belonging to masters is delegated
to boys. But whereas at Rugby and elsewhere it
is entrusted either to a large privileged order, called
the Sixth Form, or to a smaller privileged order
within the Sixth Form, called Praepostors, Monitors,
or Prefects, it is practically distributed at Eton
among a variety of senior boys, some holding ofl&ce
by virtue of their school rank and some by the
choice of their school-fellows, some having juris-
diction in the school at large and some only in their
own houses. The Sixth Form has always possessed
a good deal of latent power, which I remember to
have been called out when serious disorders were
expected, after the suppression of Montem, on the
first recurrence of its anniversary. But the Sixth
Form, as all Etonians know, consists of only 20 or
21 boys, half of whom must be Collegers, so that
above 900 Oppidans are represented by an oligarchy
of 10, which seldom acts together, or in concert with
the Sixth Form Collegers, in a monitorial capacity.
The Captain of the School (always a Colleger) and
the Captain of the Oppidans are now and then
singled out for honourable notice on the occasion
of some Royal ceremonial, and sometimes exercise
a certain personal influence, but they make no pre-
tence of ruling the School, and have no sort of right
to control the games. On the river the Captain of
the Boats is all-powerful, in the playing fields the
Captain of the Eleven, in the various football fields
the Captains of the Clubs to which they respectively
belong. In each house, the Captain of the house is

34 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

bound to keep order and regulate fagging, whether
he is in the Sixth Form or not — which, in the great
majority of cases, he cannot be. This system was
practically the same fifty years ago as it is now,
but it was not complicated with one or two
indefensible anomalies which have since grown
up. It was by no means perfect in theory, but
it worked tolerably well in practice ; and while
there could be no official tyranny on a large
scale (unless it were in College), there was little
bullying in the houses (with one or two notable
exceptions), and that hardly ever connected with
fagging. The fag had to prepare his fag-master's
breakfast or tea, and to run errands for him, but was
not called upon to perform any menial services, and
generally looked up to him as a protector. Personally,
I had no reason to complain of ill-usage, and hardly
any reason to complain of unkindness ; as I was
reputed to be rather clever, my right to be in-
dustrious was admitted, and I was always treated
generously by my competitors.

Two Eton institutions, maintained in my time,
have since become happily obsolete. One was the
absurd law of bounds, which nominally prohibited
boys from going beyond the immediate precincts
of the College, and rendered them liable to punish-
ment if caught outside by a master, an exception
being made in favour of the river itself, and of
the North Terrace at Windsor, but not of the street
which led to both of them. Of course, such a law
was not meant to be literally enforced, and was

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 35

allowed to be evaded by the ridiculous practice of
" shirking," long before it was abolished, and a
sensible rule substituted, under which it is lawful
to wander freely everywhere except in the back
streets of Eton and Windsor. The other was the
practice of stand-up fights in a well-known corner
of the Playing Fields. They were not very fre-
quent, and the influence of senior boys or friends
was often exerted to avert them, but they were
the authorised mode of settling the more serious
quarrels between schoolboys in days when duelling
had scarcely died out in the Army and Society.
Probably no half passed without two or three of
them, and I have myself witnessed more than one.
Had a master passed by when a fight was going
on, he might or might not have felt it his duty
to stop it, but I think a discreet master would have
taken care not to pass by, and fighting was certainly
not treated as a school ofi'ence. When a boy appeared
in our pupil-room with a bruised face and two black
eyes, my tutor only inquired who had been his
antagonist, and then remarked, " Well, D., I don't
know whether you have improved his beauty, but
I can answer for it that he has not improved yours."
Still, I think public opinion would have been shocked
by a regular fight between two boys in the higher
forms of the school, for in this, as well as in other
respects, there was a marked improvement in manners,
if not in morals, as boys gradually became members,
or aspired to become members, of the school aris-
tocracy.

26 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

The somewhat exclusive little Club known as the
Eton Society, or more familiarly as " Pop," may be
said to have represented the intellectual side of that
aristocracy, as it afterwards came to represent more
nearly the athletic side, not without regard in either
case to social qualifications. What it may now re-
present (such is fashion), I am by no means sure.
Fifty years ago it fully retained the character of a
Debating Society ; the Captain of the Boats would
never have have been elected into it as a matter of
course, while some of the ablest Collegers always
found their way into it when Collegers were not as
freely admitted into Oppidan society as they now
are. The number of members was raised about the
time of my own election (in 1847) from twenty-five
to twenty -eight, and a curious rule of the Society
effectually secured that at least half the members
should rise to speak in each debate, for which little
more than an hour was allotted. The consequence
was that brevity inevitably became the soul of our
wit, notwithstanding which, two or three of our
number sometimes delivered excellent speeches of
their kind. Among these I specially remember those
of the late Earl of Strafi'ord, and those of Mr. Arthur
D. Coleridge, who, however, in his entertaining and
instructive book on Eton, strangely omits to describe
the Society of which he was an ornament. Another
rule of the Society, which may appear to savour
of pedantry, forbade the discussion of any political
question less than thirty years old, so that it would
have been quite unlawful in my time to debate on

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 37

the policy of Eoman Catholic Emancipation or the
First Keform Act. On the other hand, all the
speeches were supposed to be carefully reported in
the Society's minute-books, the shorter ones by an
official, the longer ones by the speakers themselvefe,
and in these records some of Mr. Gladstone's earliest
efforts in rhetoric are duly preserved. I may add
that, as I left Eton before I was seventeen, and had
very little historical or literary knowledge, my own
part in these debates was a very humble one, but I
first learned in " Pop " to stand up before a critical,
though friendly, audience. Here, too, I first acquired
the habit of reading newspapers, and gained some
idea of general culture, which, though already en-
couraged by Arnold at Rugby, was appreciated by
very few of us at Eton, and certainly not by myself.
On the other hand, the absurd and mischievous
practice, since adopted, of investing this self-elected
Club with quasi-monitorial powers and privileges
would never have entered our imaginations.

There was a second Club-room, or quasi-Club-
room, of a very different nature, under the ban of the
school authorities, but largely frequented by the
votaries of good fellowship and conviviality among
boys of a certain standing. This was the so-called
" Cellar," being an inner sanctuary in the well-
frequented Tap of the Christopher Inn, which then
stood in the midst of the College precincts. As I
never was initiated into the mysteries of this room,
or even entered its doors, I am quite incompetent to
speak of it, but I recollect that I first heard of it

38 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

through circumstances which furnish an amusing
instance of boyish submission to boyish usurpations.
Some of the older boys in Goodford's House, being
anxious to join the company at the Tap as soon as
possible after dinner, used habitually to decline any
second course, and virtually compelled us juniors to
do likewise. Our tutor was annoyed, but at last he
thought it vain to offer what every one in turn
refused ; puddings and pastry ceased to appear at
dinner, and it was not until I became Captain of the
house that he succeeded with my support in reviving
the appetite for them. Let me here add that, how-
ever great the tyranny of fashion at Eton, and
however excessive the admiration of boyish savoir
faire, tuft-hunting in the baser sense was certainly
not a besetting vice of Eton boys.

My Eton memories contain few incidents, and none
of any public importance. In the early summer of
1844 I took part as a "pole-bearer" in the last
Montem, and have a vivid recollection of the disorder
and license which prevailed. I am not quite sure,
however, that it might not have been reformed
instead of abolished, though its abolition was a
laudable act of moral courage on the part of Provost
Hodgson and the Head-master, Dr. Hawtrey. As I
have mentioned, when the anniversary recurred in
1847, there was a serious fear of something like a
rebellion to be headed by old Etonians from Oxford
and Cambridge. Dr. Hawtrey showed real general-
ship in minimising this risk, by encouraging his
assistants to ask leave for their leading pupils, and

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 39

granting it so freely that, when the crisis arrived,
there were few possible ringleaders.

Soon after the Montem of 1844, the Czar Nicholas
of Russia, with the Kings of Prussia and Saxony,
visited the Queen at Windsor, and came with her to
see Eton. He was a man of stalwart build and stately
presence, but his manners were not so refined as
those of his brother, Alexander I., and sometimes
ofiended the English sense of propriety. I believe
it was on this occasion that I saw the Duke of
Wellington accompanying the Royal Party on horse-
back, and riding into the School-yard, where the
vigorous cheers of the boys frightened his horse,
and he was in danger of being thrown upon the
rough flint stones which still disfigure that vener-
able quadrangle. Sir Robert Peel, and several
members of his Government, none of whom survive,
were also in attendance on the Queen, and no doubt
witnessed the grand review held in Windsor Park,
to which Eton boys were admitted. For us the
chief interest of the whole afiair lay in the fact
that a second extra-week was added to our summer
holidays, besides that traditionally granted in the
Montem year, so that we got a Long Vacation of
above eight weeks in all. In the later part of the
year Louis Philippe paid us a visit. Dr. Hawtrey
being a great favourite with the Orleans family,
and I can remember the King making us a speech
from the window of Election Hall. In the February
of 1848, I first heard at Dr. Hawtrey 's dinner-table
of the revolutionary movements which led to his

40 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

abdication, and, being very ignorant of foreign poli-
tics, was much astonished that any of my elders
should express the least sympathy with such move-
ments. Of course, telegraphic communication was
then in its infancy, but I have a clear recollection
of single columns from daily London newspapers,
containing the last news by telegraph from Paris,
being circulated and eagerly read at Eton.

Unhappily, my school career was now rapidly
nearing its premature close. I had always been very
slight in figure, and delicate in health, without
realising it, and I have no doubt that I had been
unconsciously working for years at much too high
a pressure. No boys, and few grown men, under-
stand that hard exercise is no compensation for hard
brain work, but a serious aggravation of it ; that
both make a heavy demand on a limited stock of
nervous energy, and that, sooner or later, this
precious reserve will be exhausted under the double
strain. At all events, I learned my own lesson early.
I was not stout enough to excel in games, but I
was almost passionately fond of football, and never
thought of sparing myself in any physical exercise,
while [ habitually spent more hours a day in study
and composition than was reasonable at my age.
Having been fortunate enough to obtain the first
place in my "remove," I was determined to justify
it, and was so far successful as to be placed in the
Select List for the Newcastle Scholarship, in the
year 1847, before I was sixteen. This success fired
my ambition, already excessive, and I was foolish

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 41

enough to follow the evil counsels of Mr Cookesley,
who had an exaggerated estimate of my ability, and
urged me to make a desperate effort to win the
Scholarship in 1848 — a year before I had any right
to expect it. My strongest competitors were the
late Herbert Coleridge, a boy of great literary
accomplishments, and the present Lord Cottesloe,
an excellent and finished scholar of the Cambridge
type. Both of these were a full year older, had
been coached by Shilleto, the famous Cambridge
tutor, and justly ranked before me in the general
opinion of boys and masters, by virtue of their
public running, culminating in their election to
Balliol Scholarships. The natural consequence fol-
lowed — Coleridge was elected Newcastle Scholar ;
Fremantle, being placed second, was declared New-
castle Medallist ; and though I was not very far
behind, I not only lost the object at which I had
so unwisely aimed, but disabled myself from com-
peting for it in 1849, and forfeited what ought to
have been the happiest and most profitable stage
of my Eton life, during a whole year of which I
should have been Captain of the Oppidans. For
this last effort was altogether too much for me ; I
got through the examination with the greatest
difficulty, and, as soon as it was over, I went home
to place myself in the doctor's hands, and, as it
proved, to pass the next six months in a horizontal
position. More than fifty years have elapsed since
that first bitter disappointment, and it has been
followed by others still more heart-breaking. Yet

42 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

I cannot disguise from myself that I was the victim
of a disastrous and irreparable mistake on my own
part, and still more on that of my excellent parents.
I have often wondered since how they, with all their
care and foresight, could have failed to see that my
constitutional power was giving way under the com-
bined eflFect of overwork, overgrowth, and medical
neglect. But so it was, and I cannot remember
that I received the least hint or warning from my
tutor or any of my older friends, except one. My
experience, however, has since enabled me some-
times to give my juniors such timely warnings,
and my excuse for dwelling on a mere personal
misfortune must be that it may possibly lead other
studious aspirants to husband their strength in
time.

When I look back upon my Eton life as a whole,
and bring under review the public-school system of
which Eton was and is the leading representative, one
reflection persistently forces itself upon my mind.
If I extend this reflection from Eton as it was to
Eton as it is, my excuse must be that I have the
good of my old school very much at heart, and if
I apply it to Eton only, it is assuredly not because
I think it less applicable to other great schools.
What I have never ceased to believe most earnestly
is that, admirable as it was from many points of
view, Eton might have been a far better training-
ground of character and intellect than it was, and
that without the least sacrifice of its distinctive
merits. No one appreciates those merits more highly

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 43

than I do. I feel the spell of Etonian traditions and
sentiment as strongly as any old Etonian ; I would
not willingly part with the almost Athenian spirit of
personal independence fostered by those traditions ; I
admire the frank and self-reliant bearing of young
Etonians ; I know well that boys who never seriously
learned a lesson or wrote an exercise have proved fit,
after very little intermediate probation, to govern
provinces and command large bodies of men ; I even
admit that virtuous impulses may animate a young
fellow who affects to scorn virtue, and that a kind
of culture may be insensibly imbibed by one who
has never consciously used the best powers of his
own mind. And yet I am firmly convinced that
much higher results might have been — shall 1 say,
might still be ? — achieved with the same materials,
and the same machinery, worked, however, in a new
spirit and with new aims. Looking first to mental
cultivation, I would ask whether any friend of the
public-school system, governing as it does the pre-
paratory schools, can afiect to be satisfied with its
effects, as tested by the attainments of average
public-school boys at the age of eighteen or nineteen.
Most of these boys have been under instruction in
Latin and Greek for ten years at least ; they have
been taught very little else methodically; and yet what
acquaintance have they with Latin and Greek ? The
answer is supplied by the fact that even those of
them who have been prepared for the University
usually find it difficult to pass the Oxford examination
called Responsions — an examination suited for boys

44 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

of fifteen, and which a boy of ordinary ability, who
had never heard of Latin or Greek before the age of
fifteen, might well pass after three years' study. It
is not as if their ignorance of these two dead languages
were compensated by proficiency in other subjects, as
is often assumed by their partial relations. In my
time. Mathematics, French, and German were extras ;
less than half the school learned Euclid or Algebra,
and this out of school-hours ; French was learned by
a small minority, and German by a mere handful of
boys. Natural Science, of course, was wholly
neglected. Now, it is true, these subjects (except
German) form an integral part of school work, while
a certain amount of teaching continues to be given,
as it always was, in geography and history. But it
may safely be said that an average Eton boy's know-
ledge of these accomplishments is most elementary,
and might easily have been acquired in a couple of
years. What girl, of the same class in society, and
of the same age, is so ill equipped as this, and what
governess, who could show no better results, would
have a chance of being employed again ? Yet many
of these very boys, who exhibit dense stupidity in
the class-room, and are given up by the masters as
hopeless scholars, are among the sharpest members
of their own set, the life and soul of games, and there
putting forth not only the greatest energy but the
greatest intelligence. Nay more, boys of the very
same type, of like social position, and with no greater
ability, are working honestly and successfully in the
Army class at Eton, from which they often proceed

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 45

direct to Woolwich or Sandhurst, without the aid of
crammers. It is surely worth while and high time
for the friends of our public-school system to inquire
into the reasons of this strange difference, even if
they cannot propose an effectual remedy.

These reasons are not far to seek. The public-
school boy fails to learn what the masters teach him,
while he learns quickly enough what his school-
fellows teach him, simply because he never puts his
mind or heart into the former, and puts both into
the latter. Whether or not he brings with him a
fair amount of knowledge from a preparatory school,
he soon finds that it is not really necessary for him
to make definite progress, year by year, as a con-
dition of remaining at his public school. No mere
superannuation rule, unless most rigidly carried out,
will ensure industry, and no idle boy will exert him-
self vigorously unless he knows for certain that per-
sistent idleness will involve compulsory retirement,
even if he is well conducted and reported to have a
good influence. This is the motive which operates
on the Army Class. The Civil Service Examiners
know nothing of an Eton boy's influence in the
school or in the house ; they care not whether he is in
the Eight or in the Eleven ; they have simply to judge
of his attainments as compared with those of others ;
and the boy, well aware of this hard fact, lays him-
self out for work accordingly — without, however,
becoming a bookworm, or losing rank in any of the
school games. But this is not all. Almost all boys
have ambition, and will naturally strive to win

46 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

honour. Now, can it be truly said that in schools
like Eton due honour is paid by the boys, or even
by the masters, to conscientious industry and intel-
lectual distinction ? On the contrary, a spirited boy
quickly perceives that athletic prowess, especially if
coupled with certain outward graces, is always a far
surer passport to popularity among his fellows, and
too often to his tutor's favour. Of course, there is
no direct means of regulating or correcting the
boyish standard of admiration, but at least the
weight of tutorial encouragement might be thrown
into the other scale. The sisters of these lads, if
brought up at home under governesses, have no such
adverse influences to struggle against, and actually
recognise mental improvement as a chief object, if
not the sole object, of education. They have a
further advantage in receiving a far larger share of
individual attention, being, in fact, coached privately
rather than lectured in class. No doubt, any pro-
posal for giving this advantage to public-school boys
must raise a grave financial question. So long as it
is assumed that a very large proportion of public-
school masters should be married, deriving handsome
incomes from boarding-houses, and taking a maximum
number of pupils, it is practically impossible that any
one of those pupils should obtain the benefits of
private coaching. If any man so burdened could
have done full justice to all his pupils, it would have
been my own tutor, with his remarkable powers of
work, and he was not the man to neglect the dull for
the sake of forcing on the clever. But no man can

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 47

do it, and though something has been gained since
my time, at Eton and elsewhere, by limiting the
number of boys in each form, I am satisfied that
nothing will keep the rank and file up to a fair
standard of industry and proficiency except a stern
enforcement of the examination test, coupled with
far more effective tutorial supervision — not in play-
hours, but in hours reserved for study.

It is more difl&cult to speak of what might be
done for the better training of character, because all
public-school men, and especially Etonians, are wisely
jealous of any encroachment on the legitimate inde-
pendence of boys. Moreover, the relations of masters
and boys have certainly become more natural and
confidential than in past generations, so that advice
can now be tendered with advantage which then
might have been rejected with something like con-
tempt. My father was the pupil for seven years
of the late Archbishop Sumner, a man for whom
he always had the greatest respect, and whose piety
was acknowledged by the whole Church, and yet he
used to say that he never heard his tutor allude to
religion as a motive of conduct. I might almost
say the same of Dr. Goodford as a house-master, but
I should be surprised if it were now true of any
master animated, as they were, by true religious
principle. Even in those days, the same tutors who
showed this strange reticence about religion at other
times, would speak far more earnestly and take great
pains in preparing their pupils for Confirmation.
Still, I hold that far more ought to have been done.

48 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and ought now to be done, to counteract the utterly-
false notions of life and duty in which so many sons
of wealthy parents grow up and go into the world.
T admit that such notions are often derived from the
home, and that hundreds of boys in the aristocratic
and plutocratic classes have been virtually brought
up to act on the principle, " Pleasure first, and duty
afterwards," never realising the primary dictates of
practical Christianity. But the corrective power of
school-life is prodigious, as Arnold showed at Eugby,
and, though we cannot expect to find many Arnolds
among public-school masters, I believe they might do
much to check and temper a spirit which, pervading
a large section of London society, I regard as nothing
less than a national danger.

During the whole period of my school-days, my
holidays were spent at Bath, or at one of the seaside
watering-places to which my parents went for change
of air in the heat of summer. Bath was then a famous
Evangelical stronghold, the Rectory which my father
held being in the gift of Simeon's trustees, and all
the churches, with (I think) two exceptions, being in
the hands of Evangelical clergymen. Though greatly
shorn of its ancient splendour, it was still a gay place
in winter, sedan chairs were on hire in the streets,
and there were many public balls at the Assembly
Rooms, controlled by the Master of the Ceremonies,
a military ofiicer of high standing, who figured as the
successor of Beau Nash. As my parents had scruples
about clergymen's families taking part in such fes-
tivities, my brother and myself saw little of Bath

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 49

society, and often had reason to regtet the loss of our
free Norfolk life. My father was engrossed by his
clerical duties, having five parishes to superintend, and
ten curates under him, besides all the administrative
and other public business which devolved on him as
Rector of Bath. Almost every week he wrote two
sermons (each calculated to last about thirty-five
minutes), besides preparing a Thursday evening lec-
ture, and, after dining frugally at 6.30, always retired
into his study for work. He never pretended to be an
eloquent preacher, and left special directions by will
that no sermon of his should ever be published. But
these sermons, preached in the Abbey Church, had
something in them which was greater than eloquence
— something that can only be inspired by a simple
faith and a holy life — and Charles Kingsley twice
assured me that one of them, which he chanced to
hear, had left a profound impression on his mind.
My mother was constantly occupied in ministering to
him, or in domestic and charitable engagements of
various kinds ; my younger brothers and sister were
in the schoolroom under a governess, and we elder
boys moved in a very quiet circle of serious friends, all
our seniors. In fact, one inevitably got the impression,
derived from a very partial observation of Bath, that
society consisted far more largely of old maids and re-
tired officers than one afterwards found to be the fact.
Every now and then eminent men came there
as visitors, and commanded the admiration of Bath
drawing-rooms — among whom I remember Sir George
Lawrence, fresh from the tragedy of the first Afghan

D

CO MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

war ; Dr. Joseph* Wolff, the great traveller, who had
just returned from Bokhara ; Rajah Brooke and Lord
Gough, who came later, after the end of the second
Sikh War. But perhaps the most celebrated resident
of Bath in my school-days was the eccentric William
Beckford, author of " Vathek," who never, I think,
returned to Fonthill after the fall of the great tower
there, but inhabited a large house near us in Lansdown
Crescent, surrounded by a library of choice books and
artistic curiosities. We lived at Rock House, opposite
the present Lansdown Grove Hotel, and I have seen
Beckford on horseback, with bent shoulders and a
somewhat morose countenance, riding up the Lans-
down Road towards his pleasure-ground, now a
cemetery, attached to what is still called Beckford's
Tower, another of his fantastic creations. He was
attended, as was his wont, by three grooms, two
behind and one in front as an outrider. I believe
he never went abroad with a smaller cortege, and
many were the stories about his strange freaks and
ebullitions of passion. Indeed, the most sinister
rumours about his character and mode of life were
freely credited by the gossiping Bath public, and if he
had not been a recluse by choice, he would have found
but few to associate with him. When he died, the
sale of his collections attracted the same class of
purchasers from London and foreign countries as the
great sale at Stowe. Another Bohemian personage
who took refuge at Bath for some little time was
Prince Louis Napoleon. I never chanced to see him
there, but he was tolerably well kaown at Bath, and

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 51

lie was not one to forget the friends of his exile.
After he became Emperor, he casually recognised an
old Bath acquaintance in the streets of Paris, whom
he invited to call at the Tuileries. The Englishman
hesitated to act on such an invitation, but the
Emperor sent a secretary to bring him, and had a
long talk with him. In the course of this conversa-
tion, Louis Napoleon remarked, " Those were very
pleasant days which you and I remember at Bath,"
adding significantly, " and it would not in the least
surprise me, if you and I were to meet again at Bath
some of these days."

Two general elections occurred during this period
{1839-1850) — that of 1841, which placed Sir Robert
Peel in power, and that of 1847, when Lord John
Eussell and the Whigs obtained a majority. Bath
elections were notorious for their rowdy violence and
disorders; nor was that of 1841, which I witnessed,
unworthy of local traditions. The successful candi-
dates were Roebuck, a Radical, and Lord Duncan,
a Whig ; the defeated candidates were Bruges and
Lord Powerscourt, who stood as Conservatives. Of
course, there was an imposing display of party
colours and banners, one of which, I remember, was
a black flag, bearing the inscription, " Away with
the accursed Poor-Laws." The scene at the nomina-
tion was riotous in the extreme ; hired mobs were
employed (for the last time) on both sides ; fierce
encounters took place before the hustings ; stones
were thrown in volleys, one of which seriously
wounded Lord Powerscourt, and in one or two cases

52 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

fatal injuries were received. The election of 1847,
in which Lord Ashley (afterwards Lord Shaftesbury)
defeated Roebuck, was a little more orderly, but
enlivened by furious conflicts in the market-place,
which in these days would be considered intolerable.
It was further memorable for the scathing philippic
delivered by Roebuck, after the declaration of the
poll, against those whom he accused of deserting
him, three of whom he gibbeted by name. The
vials of his wrath were specially emptied on the
Dissenters, including an excellent Nonconformist
minister named Jay, whose respect for Lord Ashley's
religious character and philanthropic services had
induced them for once to change their political
allegiance. I was present again at the Bath nomi-
nation in 1852, and have since been more than
once brought into personal connection with Bath
politics. But I doubt whether party excitement,
there or elsewhere, ever runs quite so high in these
days of the ballot and household sufirage as it did
in the days of a restricted franchise and open voting,
when every vote was counted, when every elector
could be followed up, and when some of them were
" bottled up."

Every one knows what has been the development
of locomotion by land and sea during the Queen's
reign, but few of the younger generation quite
realise how greatly their world differs in this respect
from that of their fathers or grandfathers. As I
have mentioned, all my earliest journeys to Bath
were made by coach from Reading or Oxford, and I

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 53

saw the first train, with ribbons on the engine, start
on its way from Bath to Bristol. Soon afterwards
I was taken over to Bristol, where I was shown the
Great Western, one of two steam- vessels which had
recently made the first voyages across the Atlantic,
and the Great Britain, then a mere shell on the
stocks, one of the first iron ships ever built, and
regarded as a monster of the deep because her
burden exceeded 3000 tons. As for the Clifton
suspension bridge, the great piers were built about
sixty years ago, and pictures were sold in the streets
representing carriages driving across it ; but the
bridge itself was not completed until at least twenty
years later, and in the meantime there was no way
of getting over the river except by a ferry-boat or
in a basket swinging from a rope. Strange to say,
the railway from London to Brighton was not finished
in the summer of 1 84 1 , when our family party went
down from London by coach. It was an excellent
piece of coaching, for the journey of fifty-three miles
across three ranges of hills was accomplished within
five hours, including a stoppage of twenty minutes
at Crawley for tea ; indeed, the fastest coaches were
timed to do it within four and a half hours. The
last section of the line to be opened was the Clayton
Hill tunnel and the approach to Brighton, but no
sooner was this section opened than fast trains were
run from London Bridge, and before long the whole
distance was accomplished in about an hour. It is
curious that, although Brighton has since trebled
its population, and extended itself immensely both

54 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Northward and Westward, it has not extended itself
by an inch Eastward, and Arundel Terrace is still
its most easterly parade, as it was in 1841. Two
years later we passed our summer holidays at Wey-
mouth, an excellent centre for excursions by land
and sea, and in 1844 we stayed at Lyme Eegis,
Exmouth, and Torquay, then a little port encircled
with villas nestling among trees. In 1845 "^^ took
a house at Carnarvon, to which my brother and I
travelled by coach from Chester along Telford's road,
which in my father's earlier days had not been com-
pleted. As we had our own carriage at Carnarvon,
we saw a good deal of the country round, and I
remember that one day we paid ten shillings for
turnpikes. Of course, we ascended Snowdon from
Llanberis, and there was already a little shanty on
the summit, where the worst of coffee might be pro-
cured. After some three weeks' stay in North Wales,
my brother and I started on an expedition to Ireland,
driving in a coach across the Menai Bridge to Holy
head at the rate of twelve miles an hour.

It would be interesting to know for how many
centuries Holyhead has been the chief port of em-
barkation for Ireland, but it has certainly been so
ever since the beginning of the last century, and
Swift once meditated walking thither from London
on foot. In the earlier part of this century, when
my father often travelled from Cashel to Eton or
Oxford and back, the average passage, in sailing
packets, was about twelve hours, and the journey
from Holyhead to London occupied thirty-six hours

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 55

by the mail, and forty-eight hours by the ordinary
coach, the Menai Straits being crossed by a ferry.
In 1845 the service was carried on by a small class
of steamboats, and the passage lasted about six
hours. The first of our Irish visits was at the house
of an uncle, Mr. James Scott, in the county of
Wicklow, the natural beauties and historical interest
of which are scarcely appreciated as they deserve by
many Irish tourists, perhaps because it lies so near
Kingstown. Thence we proceeded to Dublin, and,
leaving the Post Office one evening about seven
o'clock, spent nearly twenty-four hours in a coach
journey through Cork to Castle Bernard, near
Bandon. The next day we drove on in an Irish
car to Killarney, where my uncle, Lord Bandon,
with a large party of relations, was already estab-
lished at the Victoria Hotel. In the course of this
journey our horse, being tired, would occasionally
turn round by way of showing his desire to get
home. The driver, being a true Irishman, humoured
him so far as to let him make a half-circle, but
pulled him round a full circle, after which the poor
beast went along briskly for a while, apparently
fancying that his object was gained. On a later
occasion, when I was starting in a car from Bray, a
man from the stables came forward and whipped tlie
horse soundly, without any apparent cause. He
wound up, however, with the remark, " I think that
will last you until you get to Kingstown." I then
observed that our driver had no whip, and under-
stood that his fellow had given the horse, in one

56 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

burst, all the flogging which it might otherwise have
received by instalments during the next stage. At
Killarney we thoroughly explored the lakes, heard
the echoes, and duly shot the Old Weir Bridge, but
climbed none of the mountains. Some years later I
ascended the highest of them, Carran Tuol, and was
much struck by the primeval solitude of the Black
Valley on the other side. We returned to Bandon
through Kenmare, Glengariff, and Bantry, travelling
in two carriages-and-four, one of which happened to
be painted orange, and the other green. Though the
orange carriage was by far the grander, being Lord
Bandon's private coach, the best horses were har-
nessed to the green carriage, out of respect for the
national — or nationalistic — colour. The swarms of
beggars which crowded round us at every stoppage
could not fail to strike even an unobservant English
boy, but I did not then understand that all these
poor creatures were the supernumeraries of a popula-
tion recklessly swelled to eight millions and a half,
dependent for bare life on potatoes, and destined to
be the helpless victims of the impending Irish
famine. We returned home by steamer from Cork
to Bristol, a passage which then occupied upwards of
twenty-four hours.

In the summer of 1846 we tenanted Levens Hall,
a well-known and very interesting house, with
antique gardens, near Kendal, which belonged to my
godmother, Mrs Howard, also the fortunate pos-
sessor of the Hall at Castle Rising, of a place called
Elford in Staffordshire, of Ashtead Park near Epsom,

ETON SCHOOL-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS 57

and of a fine old-fashioned house in Grosvenor
Square. Thence my brother and I visited a part of
the Lake Country for the first time, walking over
Helvellyn from Patterdale to Keswick. Of course,
the singular beauties of this district had already been
popularised by the Lake poets and their friends, but
1 am inclined to believe that they were more or less
appreciated much earlier than is usually supposed.
No doubt, Gray's description of an ascent of Saddle-
back is pitched in a key which mountaineers of the
present day would scruple to adopt in describing an
ascent of Mont Blanc ; but tours in Westmoreland
and Cumberland were not uncommon in the last
century, and I have myself a good series of engrav-
ings of Lake scenery published about 1780.

In the summer of 1847 we spent a few weeks at
Dover, then a squalid harbour-town, whence my
brother and I migrated to Cambridge, where our
cousin, afterwards Dr. Scott of Westminster, had kindly
volunteered to coach us. Though mere boys, we made
acquaintance with several of his friends, and the hos-
pitable traditions of Trinity College enabled him, then
an undergraduate scholar, to borrow for us two sets of
rooms in the great Court, the dignified simplicity
of which contrasts favourably, in my judgment, with
the formality of " Tom Quadrangle " at Christ
Church, Oxford. The next summer my parents took
a house for two or three months at Weston-super-
Mare, chiefly for the benefit of my own health and
that of a younger brother, who died there. It soon
appeared that I could not return to Eton, and, being

58 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

forbidden to read seriously, I lived an invalid life,
under depressing circumstances, and making doubt-
ful progress towards recovery. At last, the doctors
strongly recommended the experiment of a long sea
voyage, and I am glad to believe that its success in
my case encouraged others to seek restoration of
health by the same means. Otherwise, my experience
of life at sea gained in this voyage was the only
compensation for the sacrifice of my career from the
spring of 1848 to the autumn of 1850.

CHAPTER III

VOYAGE TO INDIA, AND YEAR OF REST
1848-1850

Life on board a sailing Indiaman — Outbreak of the second Sikh War
— Impressions of Calcutta — Return voyage — Life at St. Albans.

When tlie somewliat heroic measure of an ocean
cruise was first proposed, Captain Fitzroy, better known
as Admiral Fitzroy, who had already made his famous
voyage in the Beagle, with Charles Darwin as his
naturalist, most kindly offered, through Sir Edward
Parry, to take me out as his guest in the Arrogant,
then about to sail on a new scientific expedition.
My father, however, justly considered that I was
too helpless to be quartered on a naval officer, and
secured a cabin for me, to Calcutta and back, in
the Marlborough, an East Indiaman of 1400 or 1450
tons, owned by Messrs. Smith of Newcastle, and
commanded by the late Sir Sydney Webb. I was
taken on board this ship at Spithead by Sir Edward
Parry, and, as my feet were not allowed to touch
the ground, a gang of sailors was provided to carry
me along the pier to the boat. On reaching the
Marlborough, I was hauled up her side in a tub,
with a seat in the middle, and the upper part scal-
loped out so as to leave the chest open, but to

6o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

protect the elbows from bumps against the ship's
timbers. This was the recognised mode of shipping
ladies at sea ; and I may add that a chair was
rigged up for my use, with a tackle attached, by
which I was daily raised and lowered, through the
main hatch, between my cabin and the upper deck.
It is common to assume that during the last fifty
years the accommodation on board ship has been
infinitely improved, and that people who could never
have borne the hardships of a sea voyage in old
times can now take one without the least disco tnfort.
Such is by no means the result of my own experi-
ence. If luxury and not comfort be the main
object ; if quiet at night be a matter of no import-
ance ; if a needless profusion of food be preferred
to spacious and airy sleeping quarters ; if an incessant
round of games and dissipations be desired, engross-
ing the whole deck, and leaving no room for reading
or promenading,— then, no doubt, the comparison
is vastly in favour of the so-called ocean-palaces
which now crowd the Atlantic, the Mediterranean,
the North Sea, the Baltic, and the Indian Seas.
But for passengers of quieter tastes and homelier
wants, there were many advantages in the old sailing
Indiamen. They were, of course, very much smaller,
but a very much larger proportion of space was
allotted to passengers, for the best parts of the ship
were not occupied by machinery and coals. As the
passenger's cabin was to be his home for some four
months, he would not tolerate the close packing
which has now become the order of the day at sea.

VOYAGE TO INDIA 6i

and may be endurable for a short voyage. All the
cabins on board the Marlborough were furnished
by their occupants, and I still possess several articles
of cabin furniture admirably constructed. There
were only twenty-eight adult first-class passengers,
most of whom, if single, had separate cabins ; these
were nine or ten feet square, and, if on the main
deck, had portholes large enough for a gun to play
through, as well as Venetian blinds on the inside.
There were no inner tiers of cabins, without proper
light or ventilation, as in the magnificent steamboats
of modern times ; all looked outward upon the sea,
and there was full twenty feet of space between the
starboard and port tiers of cabins. Ice-rooms had not
been invented, but there were plenty of live sheep,
pigs, fowls, and ducks in pens on deck, besides two
cows yielding fresh milk enough for all the first-
class passengers ; meals were frequent and plentiful ;
the first-class fare included wine ad libitum; bread
was baked daily, and nothing was wanting except
fresh butter to make our diet as nutritious and
palatable as it could have been on shore. Kegularity
in hours, too, was strictly enforced ; all lights were
extinguished by half-past ten o'clock, with rare
exceptions in favour of sick persons and ladies with
young children, so that it was possible to sleep in
peace without being disturbed by noisy fellow-pas-
sengers. On the other hand, the saloon or " cuddy "
was the only public room, and passengers were
chiefly to be seen either on deck or in their own
cabins. As the ship was bound for " Calcutta,

62 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Direct," and was to touch nowhere, the allowance
of water for washing purposes was limited to a
minimum, sometimes reinforced, however, by tropi-
cal showers half filling the quarter-boats and the
pans sent up to catch the rain. For the same reason,
no washing of clothes was possible, and the outfit of
linen was calculated to last at least eighteen weeks,
fifteen or sixteen weeks being the average passage.

Our voyage began on September 7 with a very
rough process of beating down the Channel, and
we landed in Calcutta on December 30. Until we
reached the latitude of Mauritius, it promised to
be much shorter, but owing to calms and adverse
winds our daily runs were greatly curtailed in the
Indian Ocean. We never once sighted land between
the Lizard Point and the banks of the Hooghly Eiver ;
I believe ten days once elapsed without our seeing
a sail ; and in consequence of a strange oversight,
we had no signal-book whereby we could com-
municate with other vessels. In accordance with
the old rules of navigation, dictated by the course
of the trade-winds, we sailed much nearer to South
America than to South Africa, and passed the Cape
of Good Hope at a distance of more than 500 miles.
Ignorant as I was of nautical astronomy, I took
daily observations of the sun with a quadrant,
worked them out by the aid of Norie's Manual
and the Nautical Almanac, and recorded our course
on a chart, which I still possess. The quadrant
was lent me by a young midshipman, who pressed
me to borrow it, and, on my hesitating, replied, like

VOYAGE TO INDIA 63

a true English boy, "Why, you don't understand;
if I were known to possess this quadrant, I should
be expected to use it every day." On reference
to my notes of latitude, longitude, and "distance
run," I find that our best day's run was 270 miles,
and that our outward voyage covered 15,438 miles.
Though we had our full share of squalls, and one
very hard gale in which the motion was as violent
as I have ever known it, the voyage was not a very
eventful one from a sailor's point of view. On the
other hand, it was marked by a variety of social
incidents, well illustrating the effect of confining a
mixed party small enough to be on familiar terms,
but large enough to develop mutual jealousies, for
a period of nearly four months, within a cubical
space less than is contained in a good-sized house.
For instance, it was soon found that an ofl&cer in
the Company's service had under his protection a
lady, supposed to be his relation, whom the other
officers on board unanimously considered to be no
fit companion for their wives and daughters. Ac-
cordingly, he was placed under arrest by the senior
military officer on board, with the result that he
was not allowed to take meals with the other pas-
sengers, or to frequent the same part of the deck.
As the lady chose to share his seclusion, they were
practically boycotted for the whole voyage, and some
highly amusing scenes arose out of the strange posi-
tion thus created. Another trivial occurrence led
to complications which ended in the captain of the
ship being challenged to a duel by a military officer

64 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

of some age and distinction, who invited him to
fight, a outrance, the next morning on his J own
quarter-deck. Instead of arresting his assailant, the
captain somewhat Quixotically agreed to fight in
Calcutta, but, as some weeks had to pass before we
could land, there was time for peacemakers to
intervene, and the quarrel was patched up. These
are but specimens of what might and sometimes did
happen on voyages measured by months, such as
old Indians can remember, but could scarcely happen
in colossal ships carrying hundreds of passengers,
on voyages measured by days. However, being an
invalid, I was treated kindly by every one, including
the sailors, who exempted me from the customary
tax demanded from passengers on first crossing the
line, as a penalty for not undergoing the rough
initiation to which young sailors were subjected,
and which I witnessed in all its grotesque details —
first paying my way, like others.

As we approached the head of the Bay of Bengal,
we signalled to an outward-bound steamer two or
three miles off", and lowered a boat to obtain news,
as well as to replenish our exhausted supply of
cigars. The return of the boat was delayed by
some cause until it was very dark, and blue lights
were burned to guide its course ; but when it found
the ship, it brought the exciting intelligence of the
second Sikh War having broken out, and the battle
of Ramnuggur having been fought. As these eventful
tidings were read out by torch-light on deck, every
officer, young and old, became well aware that as

VOYAGE TO INDIA 65

soon as lie reached Calcutta lie would be ordered
to join his regiment at the front. And so indeed
it was. The disastrous battle of Chillianwallah soon
followed, and I myself was present when a letter
from the officer in command of the artillery, de-
scribing its least heroic incidents, was discussed by
a group of eager listeners in the mess-room at
Dumdum. The only other piece of news which we
received during a voyage of nearly four months
was the conviction of Smith O'Brien, conveyed in
the laconic message, " Smith O'Brien sentenced —
death."

My impressions of Calcutta, extending over little
more than seven weeks, from December 30, 1848, to
February 20, 1849, are naturally meagre and super-
ficial. Indiamen were then towed up the river by
steam-tugs, and anchored off the " Maidan " in a long
and imposing line— a pleasant reminiscence of home
to residents of Calcutta riding or driving along the
so-called Course, which corresponds with Eotten Row.
The process of landing was rude, and consisted in
mounting the naked back of a native, who called a
palanquin for me, in which I was carried to the house
of the late General E. W. Scott, then Captain Scott,
of the Bengal Artillery. In those days, palanquins
were the cabs of Calcutta ; there were no cab-stands,
but rows of palanquins at the most-frequented spots
answered the same purpose. There was a great variety
of private vehicles, the commonest being the buggy,
or gig with a hood, in which gentlemen drove about
at all hours, with their syces running alongside or

66 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

hanging on behind. The horses were mostly of Arab
breed, with a certain admixture of Australians, not
yet called " Walers," and a very few English of the
best type, since the heavy cost of transit would have
made it unprofitable to import inferior animals.
We carried five or six horses on board the Marl-
borough. All but one were hung in slings, and,
unlike so many horses lately carried in troop-ships
to South Africa, all arrived uninjured. As for
life in Calcutta, which is now familiar to so many
Englishmen, it has probably changed little essentially
during the last fifty years, though an old Indian re-
turning might notice such differences in manners and
social arrangements as an old Londoner might notice
in London. For instance, beer was then a favourite
beverage, and as it was also customary to drink
healths at dinner, two guests might often be seen
pledging each other in tumblers of Bass's ale. No
one spoke to a servant in English, and servants who
understood English were generally careful to conceal
it, lest they should be dismissed or suspected as able
to overhear their masters' conversation at table.
What struck me, as contrasting with my boyish ex-
perience of London, was that almost every man had
an employment, but that few women had any
domestic or other duties. This must still be true
in the main, but the old Indian would not fail to
observe that European society no longer consists so
exclusively of military officers, civil employes, and
merchants, with their families, and that the race of
old Indians rooted to the soil is practically extinct.

VOYAGE TO INDIA 67

It is perhaps worth noting that in our small body of
passengers on the outward voyage was one Brigadier-
General Tennant, who had gone out to India with
Henry Martyn, the missionary, in 1805, had received
the news of Trafalgar at Capetown, and who had
never left India until after the battle of Sobraon,
where he commanded the artillery, in 1846. Mr.
Garling, one of a still smaller party on our homeward
voyage, had not been in England for thirty-seven
years. It was inevitable that such people, saturated
with Indian ideas and habits, should look upon India
as their real home, while the caste-like ascendency of
the two great Services was but slightly tempered by
an infusion of mercantile and legal elements. Since
railways, as well as telegraphs, had not even been
projected, independent travellers were extremely few,
and I doubt whether there were ten hotels in all
India. Hence the necessity for private hospitality,
which, moreover, was facilitated by the practice of
guests bringing their own servants, if not their own
bedding. I was told that, in up-country journeys,
members of either Service might claim a night's lodg-
ing at a private house, without a formal introduction,
by merely sending in their cards, and I dare say the
privilege was very seldom abused.

Assuredly, I had every reason to be grateful for
the singular kindness of friends to whom I had
brought letters of introduction. Though I was a
mere boy, and had no great social connections, I
received eight or nine invitations to stay with such
friends for an indefinite period, and my only difficulty

68 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

was to carry out my father's instructions without giving
oflFence. Ultimately I accepted Captain Scott's most
kind hospitality, and remained an inmate of his house
in Middleton Street during my whole stay in Bengal,
with the exception of two short visits to Dumdum
and Barrackpore. He was then Secretary of the
Military Board, and his wife a daughter of General
Whish, commanding before Mooltan. We had there-
fore the earliest reports of the campaign on the
North- West frontier, which is now too often confused
with the first Sikh War. First came the untoward
news of Chillianwallah, and the conduct of a certain
regiment in that engagement soon became the subject
of as burning a question as the conduct of another
regiment at Ferozeshah had been ever since the
campaign of 1845-6. Much less confidence was felt
in the generalship of Lord Gough than in his personal
courage, and great anxiety was expressed about the
issue of the conflict ; but I must say that his despatch
on the battle of Chillianwallah was so discreetly, and
yet not untruthfully, worded as to be worthy of a
skilful diplomatist. After a long siege, Mooltan was
taken while I was still in Calcutta, but the decisive
battle of Goojerat was not fought until a day or two
after our departure, nor did we hear of it until we
arrived in the English Channel — nearly four months
later. Indeed, the latest information in Calcutta
would have been at least ten days old ; for, though
Indian roads must have been vastly improved since
the days of Warren Hastings, I am not sure that
any great change had been, or could have been,

VOYAGE TO INDIA 69

effected in the rate of travelling for couriers and
palanquin-express. Of course officers and civilians
proceeding up-country in the ordinary way, either
by palanquin or wheeled vehicles, occupied weeks on
the journey, the first part of which they sometimes
traversed by river steamers on the Hooghly and
Ganges. The difficulty of taking invalids to the
hills was thus very great, and much greater in
Bengal than in Madras, where the Neilgherries were
far more accessible, even in days before railways.
Probably the rate of mortality among Europeans in
Calcutta was not yet ascertained, but it must inevit-
ably have been high, considering the utter neglect
of drainage and water - supply. Those in feeble
health, but not ill enough to be sent home " by long
sea," were sometimes recommended by their doctors
to cruise in tug- steamers about the Sandheads at the
mouth of the Ganges, for want of a suitable inland
sanatorium. Darjeeling, the nearest, was then in-
finitely farther off in time than Simla is now, yet
Simla itself was much frequented as a summer resort
by officials, though I think it had not become a
regular auxiliary seat of government.

During my last fortnight in Calcutta, I was dis-
abled by an accident exactly similar to one which
befell the Prince of Wales in Rotten Row some
twenty-five years ago, and which I happened to be
one of the few to witness. As I was riding on the
Course with Captain Webb, in the dusk of the
evening, I saw a horseman galloping towards me,
but had no idea that his horse was bolting, and

yo MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

utterly beyond control. Such was the fact, how-
ever, and the next moment he came into most
violent collision with my horse, which had no chance
of swerving. Both horses were knocked down by
the force of the charge, and mine rolled upon me,
injuring my shoulder, and breaking open a wound
on the leg which had but just healed. This put an
end to various plans which I had formed for visiting
places in the neighbourhood, and seriously retarded
my convalescence. When I got to sea again, how-
ever, the vis medicatrix nature came to my aid once
more, and the accident left no permanent effects.

More than fifty years have elapsed since I left
Calcutta, and Sir Frederick Halliday is probably the
only survivor of those whom I remember there as
filling important offices in the Civil Service and
judiciary. He went out, I believe, in 1826, and
once stated, in my hearing, that he was one of a
group assembled on the steps of Government House
to welcome the Governor-General, Lord William
Bentinck, on his return from an expedition, when
the question was raised whether any one present
could remember a like gathering on a like occasion.
Thereupon, an old official quietly observed that he
had himself taken part in the reception of Warren
Hastings after a provincial tour. Sir Frederick had
also been employed, as a young civilian, in con-
trolling one of the last public " suttees " in Bengal,
when that institution was still tolerated, but regu-
lated, by the Government, and a Government officer
was appointed to check any gross abuse of it.

VOYAGE TO INDIA 71

Being resolved to ascertain whether the widow was
a willing martyr, Sir Frederick had an interview
and reasoned with her, but in vain, for, in order to
show that she was fully prepared for a death by fire,
the woman produced a lamp, thrust her finger into
it, and held it steadily in the flame until one or two
joints were burned away. She then ascended the
funeral pyre, but Sir Frederick still refused to allow
her to be confined by two bamboo rods commonly
used in these orgies, like straps, to prevent the
victim struggling. They were not required, how-
ever, for she remained quite still ; as soon as the
wood was lighted, the heat and smoke became so
intense that Sir Frederick was driven back a few
paces, and before he could return to his position, the
pyre with its victim was reduced to a mass of ashes.
Our return voyage was singularly uneventful, and
our party numbered only twenty-one besides children,
no military officer being able to get leave unless for
urgent reasons of health. As all sailors know, the
course taken by homeward-bound sailing vessels
diff"ered greatly from that of outward-bound vessels.
Instead of following the meridian of Calcutta far
into the Southern hemisphere, as we had done in
coming out, we steered direct for Cape Agulhas,
passed along the South African coast near enough
for me to make a rough sketch of it, and touched
at St. Helena for a fresh supply of water. The
necessity for this arose from the fact that, whereas
on the outward passage the ship carried very little
cargo, and drew but seventeen feet as she anchored

72 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

off Calcutta, she was somewhat overladen with tea,
silk, and other merchandise on the homeward passage,
and had less room for the storage of water. St.
Helena, which is now seldom visited, is a natural
rock-fortress, with only three landing-places, and
admirably suited to serve as the prison of Napoleon,
for which purpose it had been seriously considered
before he was sent to Elba. Besides seeing Long-
wood, a simple Indian bungalow, and Napoleon's
grave, so well known in pictures, some of us made
an excursion to the North- West of the Island, which
is far richer in foliage, Diana's Peak, in particular,
being wooded up to its summit. Near the Line we
encountered a sudden and very fierce tornado, which
carried away many of our sails, and tore others into
ribbons, speedily tied up by the force of the gale
into close and fantastic knots. In the North
Atlantic the direction of the trade- wind, being dead
against us, compelled us to sail far to the westward
before we headed again for the entrance of the
Channel. Most of the passengers landed at Wey-
mouth in a pilot cutter, and some of them, having
weathered the ocean voyage, were sea-sick for the
first time in this little craft, buffeting against a
chopping sea. Perhaps I never admired the beauty
of English country scenery more than I did on the
coach drive from Weymouth to Bath on a perfect
summer day. But I can truly say that I felt sadder
on leaving the Marlborough than I did in going on
board of her, well knowing that I could never again
hope to lead so calm and peaceful a life.

VOYAGE TO INDIA 73

The year 1849 was a "cholera year," and, if I
mistake not, the mortality in London was higher
than in the other great cholera years, 1832 and
1854. Great Malvern, at which my parents took
a house for the summer, was thronged by refugees
from the West End, some of whom also adopted
the cold-water cure, then at the height of its
popularity. Though I was restored to very fair
health, it was thought wiser that I should not go
up to Oxford for another year, and in the autumn
I became the pupil of the Rev. H. N. Dudding at
St. Albans. He was an excellent and able man,
who took a real interest in supplementing my boyish
scholarship by more varied reading ; but, through no
fault of his, I cannot look back on this period as
very enjoyable or profitable. However, I owed to
him a good preliminary study of Aristotle's Ethics,
which I analysed carefully and fancied that I under-
stood, until I was undeceived by further instruction
at Oxford. Both he and I were anxious that I
should compete for the Balliol Scholarship of that
year (1849), but my father dreaded the effect of
competition on my health, and I dare say his veto
saved me from a fresh disappointment. At all events,
above fifteen months, for which I have little to show,
had elapsed since my return from India, and above
two years and a half since my departure from Eton,
when I came up to Balliol, as a Commoner, in
October 1850.

CHAPTER IV

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD

I 850-1 854

The University of Oxford in 1850— Balliol College— Benjamin Jowett
—College life fifty years ago— Reading, and reading-parties —
Strange disappearance of James Winstanley — Reminiscences of
the Union Society and the " Essay Society."

The University of Oxford, in 1850, was becalmed,
as it were, between two periods of stormy agitation.
The reactionary wave of theological excitement,
known as the " Oxford Movement," had almost
spent its original force, and left Academical society
in comparative peace. Its real tendencies, so loudly
and ostentatiously disavowed by its authors, bad
been revealed by the reception of Newman and
many of his followers into the Church of Eome,
and though High Church doctrines were still the
fashionable creed of Oxford, the Tractarian party
had apparently ceased to be militant. On the other
hand, the era of University Eeform had barely com-
menced, and the Rationalistic movement, represented
by "Essays and Reviews," was still in an esoteric
stage. It was in August of this very year that the
first Royal Commission was appointed by Lord
Russell's Government, and, though its Report (issued
in 1852) was anticipated to some extent by the

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 75

action of the University itself, the government,
examination system, and social habits of the Uni-
versity were essentially the same in 1850 as they
had been at the beginning of the century. Both
the University and the Colleges were subject to
antiquated codes of statutes, which it would have
been no less disastrous than impossible to enforce,
but which, in the opinion of eminent authorities,
they had no power to alter. The sole initiative
power in University legislation, and by far the
largest share of University administration, was in
the hands of the Hebdomadal Board, consisting
solely of Heads of Colleges with the two Proctors,
and not unjustly described by Mr. Gold win Smith
as an " organised torpor." There was an assembly
of residents known as the House of Congregation,
but its business had dwindled to mere formalities,
and the only other University Assembly, known as
Convocation, was virtually powerless, except for
purposes of obstruction. It included thousands of
non-resident Masters of Arts, mostly ignorant of
Academical questions ; it had the right of debating,
but this right was almost annulled by the necessity
of speaking in Latin ; and it could only accept or
reject without amendment measures proposed by
the Hebdomadal Board. No student could then
be a member of the University without belonging
to a College or Hall, while every member of a
College or Hall was compelled to sleep within its
walls until after his third year of residence. Persons
unable to sign the Thirty-nine Articles were ab-

76 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

solutely excluded, not merely from degrees, but
from all access to the University, inasmuch as the
test of subscription was enforced at Matriculation.
It is needless to add that, being unable to enter the
University, they could not obtain College Fellow-
ships, which, however, were further protected against
the intrusion of Dissenters by the declaration of
churchmanship required to be made under the Act
of Uniformity. If Professorial lectures were not at
so low an ebb as in the days of Gibbon, when the
greater part of the Professors had "given up even
the pretence of teaching," they were lamentably
scarce and ineffective. The educational function
of the University had, in fact, been almost wholly
merged in College tuition, but the Scholarships,
as well as the Fellowships, of the Colleges were
fettered by all manner of restrictions, which marred
their value as incentives to industry, while, in too
many cases, favouritism was checked by no rule of
law or practice. The great majority of Fellows
were bound to take Holy Orders, and the whole
University was dominated by a clerical spirit which
directly tended to make it, as it has so long been,
a focus of theological controversy.

Balliol College, which I entered as a Commoner
in October 1850, was already, as it has ever since
remained, the most eminent place of education in
the University. It had long been my ambition to
win a Scholarship there, and when I went up for
matriculation in the spring of that year, the autho-
rities, being aware that ill health alone had pre-

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 77

vented my competing, gave me a special examination,
and placed me at the head of my year. The " old
Master," Dr. Jenkyns, about whom so many good
(and true) stories have been told,' had been my
father's tutor, and was elected to the Mastership
during his residence at Oxford. He was therefore
always specially kind to me, as well as to my
brother, who had come into residence two years
earlier. He was in no respect a great man, nor
was he by any means the sole creator of the great-
ness of Balliol, for the class list shows that Balliol
under his predecessor ranked high among colleges,
and it is well known that Nathaniel Ellison, if not
others, shared with him the credit of opening the
Balliol Scholarships and Fellowships. Still, it is
certain that for thirty or forty years his life was

1 Two stories, illustrative of his peculiar simplicity and humour, are
perhaps less familiar to old Balliol men than many others. On one
occasion, when the late Dr. Ogilvy was still a Tutor of Balliol, a young man
of fast habits was summoned before the Dons for the crowning offence of
having gone to Epsom or Ascot without leave, and the "trial scene" had
doubtless been concerted beforehand between Ogilvy and the Master. After
enumerating other escapades, Ogilvy approached the climax — -"And, Master,

you will scarcely believe it, but Mr. clandestinely attended a race."

Here the Master struck in — " A boat-race, I presume, Mr. Ogilvy." " No,
Master, " rejoined Ogilvy, in solemn accents, " the natural goodness of
your heart deceives you — I allude to a horse-race." On another occasion,
when the late W. G. Ward and Mr. Jenkins, a namesake of his own, were
Fellows, he seized an opportunity of " scoring off " both at once. For,
while he never concealed his horror of Ward's Church views, he showed
a still greater contempt for the Fellows and Scholars of the Blundell
foundation, to which Mr. Jenkins belonged. The subject of discussion
being a former Master under whom the College had sunk to its lowest
ebb, and whom Dr. Jenkyns denounced in no measured terms, some
unwary person asked him what the enormities of this unfortunate man
had really been. The Master promptly replied, firing right and left —
" He was suspected of Romanising tendencies, Mr. Ward; he was a Blundell
Fellow, Mr. Jenkins."

78 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

steadily devoted to promoting the interests of Balliol,
and that he enjoyed the genuine respect of all its
members, in spite of a most comical personality to
which no mere description can do justice.

During my residence at Balliol, the leading
Tutors were Mr. Woollcombe, Mr. Lake, and Mr.
Jowett. The first of these was really an excellent
classical scholar, and had mastered for himself most
of the books then in use, but his apparent confusion
of thought, and amusing deficiency in the sense of
proportion, rendered him a very ineffective teacher.
Lake, the late Dean of Durham, was a very clever
man, with a knowledge of history then unusual, and
his lectures on this subject, in particular, were highly
appreciated. Of Jowett, as a tutor, it is impossible
to speak too highly, and his teaching ranged over
three distinct subjects — pure scholarship, philosophy,
and New Testament criticism. I am not prepared
to say that his Greek scholarship fully satisfied the
Cambridge standard of accuracy, but he was an
admirable interpreter of ancient authors, and in
revising Greek or Latin composition he had the great
merit of throwing himself into his pupil's conception
of the piece, instead of merely substituting a version
of his own. His " composition-lectures," too, were
in their way unique. He was perhaps the first to
make the " History of Philosophy " a serious study,
while his dissection of Plato's Republic in examina-
tion lectures was so thorough as to border on cram-
ming. His indefatigable work, and sympathy with
all earnest workers, attracted to him the pupils of

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 79

other Tutors ; his door was open to all who sought
his help at all hours of the day and up to a late hour
at night ; he was equally successful in rebuking
conceit and in encouraging self-reliance. After he
became Master, he gradually ceased to be the
prophet or the martyr, and passed into the benig-
nant host, but he never quite acquired the ease of
manner suited to such a part, and he certainly never
lost the essential characteristics of a teacher. Not
having been one of his chosen disciples, I might find
it difficult to endorse some of the unqualified tributes
paid to his memory, but I entirely share the opinion
that he was the greatest Oxford Tutor of the last
half-century ; that he was a man, if not of original
genius, yet of truly original character ; and that,
when he died, he left none like him in Oxford.
These leading Tutors were ably seconded by the
late Archdeacon Palmer, James Riddell, and soon
afterwards by Henry Smith, a man of the most
comprehensive intellect that Oxford has produced
in my time. One and all of these were animated
by that single-minded and disinterested spirit of
duty to which Balliol owes its long ascendency, and
which makes it an example to all the rest of the
University. Being all unmarried, and living in
College rooms among the men, they were able to
keep good order, and were constantly accessible to
pupils. Being all clergymen, they also stood in a
certain pastoral relation to undergraduates, which
might doubtless be exaggerated, but was not without
its salutary influence.

8o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

In attempting to describe College life at Balliol,
therefore, I may possibly be drawing too favourable
a picture of the average College life, but I believe
that, with slight deductions, it is true of all the better
Colleges fifty years ago. No doubt, many real im-
provements have since been introduced, but it must
not be taken for granted that every change has been
an unmixed improvement. For instance, the system
of inter-collegiate lectures delivered to very large
classes has greatly raised the standard of tutorial
instruction ; and one strong proof of their general
merit is that " coaching for honours," which is still
thought so necessary at Cambridge, has become very
rare at Oxford. But, while the abler honour-men
have thus gained on the whole, the less able probably
fared better under the old system of catechetical
lectures delivered to small classes of about fifteen
men, all of the same College, in a tutor's private
sitting-room. Again, the abolition of Tests, the great
expansion of studies, the adoption of the Cambridge
practice enabling the junior members of a College to
lodge outside its walls, and other measures for "open-
ing " the University, have greatly extended its influ-
ence and usefulness, but they have seriously impaired
the social unity of Colleges, while the introduction of
married Fellows has, in some cases, entirely spoiled
Common-room society. It would be easy to give
many similar instances of so-called reforms which
may have been inevitable, and even beneficial on the
whole, but which one who knew Balliol in the days
of Jenkyns cannot regard with unmixed satisfaction.

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 8i

In those days Balliol numbered some eighty or
ninety undergraduates, nearly all living in College
rooms. The commoners, and still more the scholars,
were largely drawn from the great public schools,
with the result that a spirit of freemasonry prevailed
among us which nowadays would be impossible. The
Snell Exhibitioners, from Glasgow University, formed
a distinct element, of which I never fully appreciated
the value ; but, as they were usually of a convivial
disposition, they were acceptable guests at wine-
parties, to which they sometimes contributed im-
portations of Scotch whisky, then a somewhat rare
beverage. These wine-parties were an important
feature of College life, and helped to bring members
of various sets into contact with each other in a way
for which breakfast-parties supply no adequate sub-
stitute. Though I was essentially a quiet and read-
ing man, I usually gave two of them each Term, and
as forty or fifty other men probably did the same,
there must have been about two wine-parties on the
average every night in the week ; indeed, I myself
went to one or more on most nights of the Term,
except Sundays. Perhaps fifteen or twenty guests
might be invited to each, but few stayed more than
half or three quarters of an hour, and, as we dined
at five or (afterwards) at half-past five, all was
generally over by half-past seven or eight, when
reading-men betook themselves to study, and were
actually known, and that not unfrequently, to pro-
tect themselves against interruption by "sporting
their oaks." I can testify, with a good conscience,

82 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

that I never heard bad language used at a wine-
party, or witnessed a quarrel which could have led
to serious consequences, even in duelling days. No
doubt, I may have been fortunate in my company,
as I certainly was fortunate in my College ; but, as
I often mixed with the faster set of men at wine-
parties, this fact is not without significance, as
indicating the prevalent tone of Balliol men in
my time. I may also say that I never saw any one
the worse for liquor in College rooms, though I feel
bound to add that a like standard of sobriety was
not always maintained at the annual Balliol " Nune-
ham parties," to which the College barge was always
towed down, and from which it sometimes returned
with passengers too unsteady on their legs to ride
or walk home. There was then no junior Common
Room at Balliol, or at any other College, with two
or three exceptions ; no College Musical Society, and
no Debating Society. On the other hand, afternoon
walks afforded constant opportunities for a friendly
interchange of ideas on all subjects, from the highest
to the lowest, which the present multiplicity of
recreations has greatly diminished. For it is scarcely
realised by the rising generation that walks in the
country were almost the only form of exercise in
the winter, some fifty years ago, except for those
who cared to row on the river, or could afibrd to
ride. Probably the number of these was somewhat
greater than it now is, owing to the impoverishment
of so many country gentlemen. At all events, in
the absence of other sports, riding for exercise was

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 83

commoner, and about two in the afternoon several
horses might be seen being led up and down in front
of most Colleges. But even athletics, in the form of
running and jumping, had not yet become fashion-
able ; racquets, which have now almost gone out
at Oxford, had not then come in ; hockey and golf
had not been introduced ; lawn tennis (not to speak
of croquet) had not been invented ; bicycling was
unknown ; even football, though vigorously practised
at school, was voted too rough a game for grown
men, and was very seldom played. As a natural
consequence, there was more billiard-playing and
general loafing, but the evenings were not so much
cut up as they now are by social gatherings and
other distractions fatal to study. Meanwhile,
Balliol was specially renowned for its prowess on
the river— no mean proof of collegiate esprit de
corps. The credit of this success was mainly due
to the late Lord Justice Chitty, who first made his
reputation as the best of amateur wicket-keepers,
but afterwards mainly devoted his energies to rowing.
Thanks to his exertions and influence, carried on by
successors like Dr. Warre of Eton, the Balliol Eight
was never, I believe, lower than third in the boat-
races during a period of fifteen years.

It is often said, or implied, that fifty years ago
hardly any College Tutors did their duty, and that
hardly any lectures were worth attending, though an
exception is sometimes made in favour of Balliol.
Such is not my own impression. I admit that solid
learning counted for less than it now does as a

84 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

qualification for teaching, that most Colleges had one
or two second-rate men as Tutors who lectured in a
perfunctory way and left real tuition to coaches, and
that men of equal standing but of very unequal
attainments were often mixed up together in the
same classes. Nevertheless, it is my belief that in
almost every College there was at least one Tutor
fully competent and more than willing to instruct
reading-men in every branch of knowledge then
recognised in the Classical Schools. Assuredly this
was so at Balliol ; and yet it would be too much to
say that all the lectures into which one was put, even
at Balliol — perhaps fourteen a week — either were or
could be profitable to a man capable of grappling
with subjects for himself The fact is that such a
man, with libraries at his command, needs guidance
in reading more than oral instruction, and gains little
from taking down notes at a lecture, however good,
which he might not gain by reading an equally good
text-book with equal attention. What a College
tutor or private tutor can supply is good advice
about the choice of books, the method of reading, and
the management of a student's powers. This was
freely done for us by the Balliol Tutors of my time,
and above all by Jowett. One piece of advice which
he gave me very early in my residence I have always
regarded as the most practically valuable which I
have ever received. Knowing that I had already
broken down through overwork, and crediting me
with some capacity for concentration, he earnestly
dissuaded me from studying more than five hours a

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 85

day, including lectures, but warned me against ever
allowing my attention to flag. This excellent rule I
followed religiously for several years in reading
successively for Honours in Moderations, the Final
Classical School, and the Modern History School ;
nor did I allow myself to deviate from it when my
work was thrown into arrear by a low fever at the
end of 1852. My father supplemented it by an
injunction to avoid personal competition, such as
that for University scholarships or prizes, so that
my reading was confined within a tolerably de-
finite groove. The real advantage that Balliol men
enjoyed in a high degree, as compared with their
fellows in other Colleges, was the stimulating
atmosphere of the place, the healthy sense of in-
tellectual rivalry, and their friendly relations with
the Dons. For not only Jowett, but the other
Tutors made friends of the steadier undergraduates,
entertaining them at breakfast or dinner, taking
walks or rides with them, and showing a genuine
interest in their welfare. Most of us " coached " more
or less, but I am quite sure that coaching was not
even then a necessity, and it would have been very
wrong if it had been. No one has a greater respect
for Cambridge than I have, but I cannot help saying
that in this respect I think it had much to learn
from Oxford in my time (for I speak not of the
present), and that a parent who has paid tuition fees
to a College has just reason to complain if he finds
that, after all, efi'ective tuition can only be procured
by paying additional fees to a coach.

86 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

One very characteristic feature of Oxford study
in those days was the institution of the Long Vaca-
tion reading-party, so graphically described in the
" Bothie of Topernavuolich," though with a some-
what too liberal admixture of obsolete Oxford slang.
Like my elder brother, I went on a reading-party in
each of my three Long Vacations, and no part of
my University life was more pleasantly or profitably
spent. Some reading-parties, and especially those
of Cambridge men, were organised by coaches, who
mustered round them a group of pupils not always
known to each other, or lodging in the same house,
but receiving a daily lesson of an hour a-piece, and
assorting themselves as they pleased for meals or
otherwise. Such was not the character of the read-
ing-parties to which I belonged in 1851, 1852, and
1853. These were voluntary associations of friends,
who clubbed together, and took a family house in
some attractive part of the country for reading
purposes. In each case we had a coach, but in two
cases some members of the party were reading inde-
pendently. In 185 1, three or four of us were pupils
of Mr. Goldwin Smith, whose rare gift of pleasantry
never shone more brilliantly than in the free and
easy intercourse of a little society like ours. Another
of the party was the late Professor Conington, who
had two pupils lodging in another house, but was a
great favourite in our domestic circle, often en-
livening it with humorous sallies, and still more
frequently provoking humorous sallies from Goldwin
Smith and the rest of us. A fourth was my old

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 87

friend and Eton school-fellow, Mr Charles Stewart
Parker, late M.P. for Perth, and editor of Sir Robert
Peel's letters ; a fifth was the present Dean of Ripon,
also one of my school-fellows and most intimate
friends. We first settled at Lynton, but afterwards
moved to Ilfracombe. Our mornings and evenings
were spent in reading, our afternoons in walking or
riding along the clifi's and the country behind, especi-
ally on Exmoor, then far less enclosed than it now
is. Simple as our life was, it was thoroughly enjoy-
able, and none of us got tired of it. We juniors
discussed every subject, human and divine, with a
freshness of interest only possible to youth, and I
am sure gained a great deal more from the maturer
criticisms of Gold win Smith and Conington than we
could then realise.

The next year (1852), after a short run in Ire-
land, I joined the Dean of Ripon and Sir Robert
Herbert on a reading-party at Avranches, in Nor-
mandy, where our coach was the late Archdeacon
Palmer, whom all of us knew as an exemplary Balliol
tutor, and the kindest of friends. Avranches was
then a very cheap place, and a great resort of English
people compelled to economise strictly. We hired a
small but comfortable furnished house for 100 francs a
month, and dined at the table d'h6te on the ahonne-
metit system, at the rate of forty francs a month.
None of us, I think, had ever been in France before,
and our essays in housekeeping, with the aid of a
typical French maid-of-all-work, furnished us with
an unfailing source of amusement for years after-

88 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

wards. I knew less of the French language than any
of my companions, and one of my experiences result-
ing from this ignorance may perhaps be worth noting.
Being unwell for some days, and failing to cure
myself, I was advised to send for a French doctor.
Accordingly, I copied a model letter to a doctor from
a "Handbook of Travel- talk," varying it slightly,
however, to give it an air of originality. I also got
up, out of a French dictionary, a few words and
phrases descriptive of my symptoms. The doctor
arrived, and, contrary to my expectations, proved to
be quite ignorant of English. I started well, but
soon came to an end of my vocabulary. He began
to put questions, after the manner of his profession,
which I could neither answer nor understand ; when
suddenly a bright idea struck him, and he remarked
that, although Monsieur had evidently a difficulty in
speaking French, he knew from a perusal of my letter
that I wrote it admirably, so that I need only sit
down and compose a detailed account of my case.
It is superjQiuous to relate the sequel ; the one thing
certain is that I never took any of his medicine.

In the following summer (1853), being my last
Long Vacation, I made a tour in Switzerland with
C. S. Parker, after which he and I, with Goldwin
Smith and Conington, started for my third reading-
party, of which the scene was Grasmere. We had
three other companions, all old friends — the Eev.
Arthur G. Butler, still Fellow of Oriel ; Dr. J. H.
Bridges, late Fellow of Oriel ; and James Winstanley,
whose strange disappearance, never fully explained,

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 89

startled those of us who knew and cared for him
nearly forty years ago. This party was a revival or
continuation of that at Lynton in 185 1 ; more than
one argument, then left unfinished, was taken up and
carried on with renewed energy ; Conington's incapa-
city for mountain-climbing gave rise to as many harm-
less jokes as his incapacity for riding Exmoor ponies ;
Goldwin Smith was as fertile as ever in pregnant and
pithy sayings ; and the new members of our party
fell into our traditions without an effort. On this
occasion, Parker, who had taken his degree early in
1852, was coaching Winstanley and myself, having
kindly undertaken to review the whole of my read-
ing, with a view to strengthen weak points — one of
the best services that a friendly tutor can render.
Our stay at Grasmere was marked by no incident,
and no poet, like Clough, will ever immortalise our
unreserved conversations. Probably most of us said
nothing worth recording, and yet, when I look back
upon it by the light of later experience, one negative
fact emerges from my recollections, which may not
be quite unworthy of record : it is, simply, that I
can recall no angry or indecorous word being spoken
on any of my three reading-parties, and that " chaff"
never degenerated into vulgarity or sarcasm. I be-
lieve that members of other like reading-parties would
bear like testimony, and my conclusion is, that
" plain living and high thinking " among young
Englishmen of the University type are at least
favourable to morals and manners.

The sad and mysterious disappearance of Win-

90 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Stanley took place in 1862, but almost escaped public
notice, and there are few now living who remember
the circumstances of it, which are not without in-
terest. Winstanley had been educated at Rugby,
and was a man of real ability, as well as of the
highest character, and of a singularly amiable dis-
position. He was a scholar of University College,
gained the Hertford Scholarship in 1852, and might
have obtained a First Class in the final Classical
Schools, but he was a slow worker, and, having a
morbid distrust of his own powers, he abandoned the
attempt, and took an "Honorary Fourth "in 1854.
About the same time he succeeded to a landed pro-
perty in Leicestershire, and also adopted the Posi-
tivist creed, under the influence of Congreve. With
a view to prepare himself for the duties of his position,
as he understood them, he went over to Paris, con-
tinued his studies, and became known to Auguste
Comte himself, before the philosopher's death in
1857. After a long residence abroad, he came back
and settled on his estate, interested himself actively
in the welfare of his dependants, built a church, and
spent much in the improvement of cottages. In the
year of his death he became High Sheriff for his
county, and ought to have been serving in that capa-
city when he was suddenly missed. There were
those who fancied that his nervous dread of figuring
in so public an office had something to do with his
flight, but it happens that I walked home with him
from a dinner-party two or three weeks before it, and
found him in a very cheerful frame of mind. In

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 91

fact, he had already acted once as High Sheriff at
the Assizes, and seemed to have got over his trepi-
dation about it, while he did not seem to feel other
troubles of which he had formerly spoken to me with
some anxiety. Just before the next Assizes he went
down to Folkestone, stayed at a hotel, and started
one morning for the pier to meet his mother and
sister coming from Boulogne, leaving, as I heard, his
portmanteau open in his room, and with a very
modest sum in his possession. Thenceforward, he
was never seen alive by any one who knew him.
Advertisements were issued, and after the lapse of
several weeks a boatman at Coblenz came forward
with a story which has ever since been received as
true. He stated that a gentleman, described as cor-
responding in appearance with Winstanley, hailed him
one evening and desired to be ferried over to Ehren-
breitstein, and that either in going or in returning
this gentleman dropped over the side of the boat in
a manner indicative of an intention to drown himself.
I believe that a body, found in the river and buried,
was afterwards exhumed, but was scarcely capable of
recognition. The clothing, however, was identified
by a servant, and the evidence, as a whole, satisfied
his executor (Congreve) and his relations that the
remains were, indeed, those of Winstanley. Mean-
while, as I learned from Sir William Erie, who hap-
pened to be Judge of Assize for Leicestershire, he
succeeded, with the aid of the Under Sheriff, in
hushing up and keeping out of the newspapers the
fact of the High Sheriffs disappearance. There

92 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

were those who, knowing Winstanley's temperament,
thought it not impossible that he might have deli-
berately immured himself in a monastery. My own
fear always was that, in a fit of conscientious doubt
as to whether he was doing any good to himself or
others in the world, he might have proceeded to act
upon the reasoning of Hamlet, but I never felt quite
sure for years afterwards that he might not reappear
in my rooms. But this was not to be. After a
certain interval his estate passed to a distant kins-
man, and, though some legal question was raised a
year or two later on the sufiiciency of the evidence
for his death, I believe that it was overruled by the
Court. When Speke disappeared at the beginning
of 1868, and the records of similar cases were indus-
triously raked up, I was surprised that no one noticed
that of Winstanley. But he is not forgotten by his
old friends. He was one who found life too hard for
him, not because he was the victim of special wrongs
or trials, but simply because his sensitive, diffident,
and gentle spirit could not bear what most of us
take as the inevitable lot of humanity. He could
not master or shake off the gloomy thoughts which
crowded in upon him ; like the Psalmist, he vainly
sought refuge in isolation from the provoking
of all men and the strife of tongues ; and so
he vanished from the world, little knowing how
much he was valued or how long he would be
regretted.

The " Union Society," which is still a very flourish-
ing institution, filled a more important place in the

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 93

life of Oxford, during the period of my residence,
than it does in the present day. There was then
but one College Debating Society in Oxford, so far
as I know, and only two or three Colleges had a
reading-room for undergraduates, while access to
College Libraries was difficult to obtain. If a young
man wanted to practise his eloquence, or to borrow
other books than novels, or to read the newspapers,
or to write letters, with volumes of reference at hand,
his easiest, if not his sole, resource was to join the
Union. I did so in my second Term, being the
earliest date then permissible, and made constant
use of it until I left Oxford. In deference to my
father's wish, I spoke but twice as an undergraduate,
but as a Bachelor of Arts I took a somewhat active
part in its debates, becoming President in Michael-
mas Term, 1854, and Librarian in Lent Term, 1855.
I am not prepared to maintain that ours was the
golden age of the Union, for I observe more eminent
names (including that of Gladstone) on the list of
officials in the old times before us, and there seems
to be quite as large a proportion of eminence or
promise among those who have since held office.
Still, I note on a single page recording the officers
elected during the six years 1849-55 t^e names
of Lord Salisbury, Dean Boyle, the late Lord
Brabourne, Professor Henry Smith, the late Lord
Beauchamp, the late Professor Shirley, the late Mr.
Charles Pearson (author of "National Life and
Character " ), Mr. Goschen, Sir Godfrey Lushington,
and Mr. Frederick Harrison, all of whom, except

94 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Lord Salisbury and Mr. Harrison, were Presidents.
Then, as now, many of those who obtained distinc-
tion at the Union were men who devoted their whole
energy to it, and made a poor show in the Uni-
versity class-lists ; some, indeed, had great difficulty
in getting through pass-examinations. But there
were always men of high University reputation on
the Committee, and when it was known that such
men were going to speak, they seldom failed to
command good audiences. There were two specially
memorable debates in my time — the one in 1853,
on Mr. Gladstone joining the Coalition Government
of Lord Aberdeen; the other in 1854, on University
Reform and the Report of the first Oxford Commis-
sion. The former debate was on a motion of Mr.
T. F. Wetherell, ,and was introduced by an incisive
speech, in which he described Mr. Disraeli as " the
man who hunted Sir Robert Peel to his death, and
stood over his grave with curses." This debate
lasted four nights, having been thrice adjourned —
once in consequence of the furious excitement pro-
duced by a speech of Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, in
which he denounced the Tory party in no measured
terms. Almost every one who ever took, part in
Union debates spoke on this occasion, and most
spoke better than usual, but the most effective
speeches were those of the late Mr. C. H. Pearson
and Mr. B. B. Rogers, on different sides and in
different styles, one highly rhetorical, the other
highly Parliamentary. I thought Mr. Pearson's
speech the finest that I had ever heard, but Mr.

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 95

Rogers, I believe, was carried some way home to-
wards his College on the shoulders of his admirers.
The debate of 1854 was on a motion of my own,
and also lasted four nights, but the proceedings
were not so lively, though a dashing " champagne
speech" was delivered by a man who, as I was
told, having never spoken before, had made a
bet at a wine-party that he would reply to me.
Some of the best debates, however, took place in
private business, and notably on the vexed ques-
tion, often revived, of opening the Union rooms on
Sundays, and on that of stamping members' letters
gratuitously.

It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions,
including that of Lord Randolph Churchill, all Oxford
men who have become eminent in the House of Com-
mons have first become eminent at the Union. In
other words, the Union has always been an excellent
school of speaking, and probably for this reason,
that while the gregarious sentiment of the audience
represses any tendency to a didactic or philosophical
tone, the mass, after all, consists of educated gentle-
men whose individual taste would be shocked by
vulgarity. In the present generation, the style of
Union oratory has been sensibly afi'ected by the rise
of College debating societies, in which most of the
speakers have made their debut, but fifty years ago
every young aspirant essayed to speak as if he were
addressing a popular meeting from a platform. The
result was that he might occasionally rise into real
eloquence but was in serious danger of sinking into

96 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

bombast, and my impression is that, while Union
speeches are nowadays somewhat more conversa-
tional, they exhibit a somewhat higher standard of
knowledge and debating power. It is difficult, how-
ever, to make a comparison, for, unlike the Eton
Society, the Oxford Union Society keeps no report of
its debates. Once only, I believe, were shorthand
writers admitted, when the late Lord Brabourne
moved a resolution in favour of returning to Protec-
tion, and was supported by the Lord Robert Cecil of
those days, as well as by others who might scarcely
care to reprint their juvenile speeches. This was
before my time, but one contemporary of my own,
Mr. Goschen, would probably be able to adopt most
of his early utterances, barring such exuberances of
rhetoric as few of us could wish to be raked up in
later years. For he was always a member of the
Left Centre, vigorously exchanging thrusts with
Tories and ultra -Radicals on either side, and
certainly no one of my old friends has changed
less during fifty years in opinions and character,
than which no better proof of a strong individuality
can be given. Two other prominent speakers of the
same age were Oxenham and Wetherell. Oxenham
specially excelled in fluency and glowing perorations,
some of which, if preserved, could not be read with
a grave face in these days ; Wetherell, on the
contrary, was a master of laconic sarcasm. One of
the replies attributed to him, and still remembered,
is perhaps worth quotation. Wetherell had laid
down some proposition as a great constitutional

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 97

principle, and was answered by an opponent who
expressed surprise at so audacious an assertion, it
being notorious, as he said, that in the reign of
King Henry VIII. a statute had been passed estab-
lishing the very contrary principle. Wetherell at
that stage of his career knew little of Henry VIII.
or constitutional principles, but he did know that his
opponent was notorious in the University for his
mendacity. He therefore, in his reply, declared that '
he was perfectly well aware that such a statute had
been passed in the reign of King Henry VIII., but,
he added triumphantly, " was there a tyro in history
so ignorant as not to know that it was repealed in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth ? " I cannot personally
vouch for this story, for I was not present, but I
have never doubted it ; and, if he should read these
pages, I am sure he will forgive me for relating what
many of us admired as a characteristic instance of
his dialectical resource. In the later part of 1854
he was nominated for the Presidentship, which he
fully deserved for his prowess in debate and ex-
perience of Union business. Contests for the
Presidentship were then rare, but I was induced to
oppose him on grounds which no longer appear to
me so cogent as they did at the time, and, as he was
known to be on the point of joining the Roman
Catholics, I naturally found myself in the position of
being the No-Popery champion, in which capacity I
was elected by a large majority. The sequel may be
omitted, with the exception of one little incident
which has its comical side. While party spirit was

o

98 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

still runnmg high, the invalid son of Dr. Pusey
happened to become a candidate for the Union. In
the ordinary course he would have been elected
without a question, but Archdeacon Palmer repre-
sented to me that, in the ferment of the moment,
some of my hot-headed supporters might blackball
him, and suggested as the only effectual safeguard
that I should propose him myself. This I did, and
he was elected unopposed. But I must not multiply
these simple recollections of the Union, which I
regard as one of the most interesting and useful
institutions in Oxford. I will only add that I can
remember no less than five debating-rooms — the first,
a picture gallery ; the second, a Music Hall in
Holywell ; the third, a large room, now curtailed,
behind the Clarendon (formerly the Star) Hotel ; the
fourth, what is now the Library, decorated with
strange wall paintings by Rossetti and other young
artists ; the last, and best, the present excellent
Debating Hall, with its strangers' gallery. The
audiences in the earlier debating-rooms were seldom
very large, but they were generally very attentive,
and there was less coming and going, as they
could not fall back on any reading-room under the
same roof.

It is now several years since I have attended a
Union debate, but I have occasionally been consulted
on Union business, and was on a Committee for
placing a bust of Mr. Gladstone in the Debating-
room. In the summer of 1899, I was pleasantly
reminded of my connection with the Society by a

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD 99

request that I would arbitrate on a somewhat delicate
question. It appears that Mr. Walsh's book, "The
Secret History of the Oxford Movement," had been
proposed in due course to be purchased for the
Library, when an outcry was raised against it, and
it was ultimately resolved that three ex-Presidents
of at least ten years' standing should be asked to
decide whether this volume, being desired by a large
section of the members, was of so offensive a charac-
ter that it ought not to be so purchased. Professor
Dicey and Mr. Strachan Davidson of Balliol were
associated with me as arbitrators, and our unanimous
award was in favour of admitting the book — not
upon its merits, as to which we gave no opinion, but
simply on the ground that, being a serious contro-
versial work, and forming part of the history of its
subject, it could not, consistently with sound prin-
ciple and practice, be treated as unfit to be placed in
the Union Library.

In the autumn of 1852, 1 was among the founders
of a modest Society which never adopted a distinc-
tive title, and for that very reason was nicknamed
The Mutual Improvement Society, but was generally
known by the simple name of " The Essay Society."
In these days Oxford is honeycombed by a multitude
of little circles and coteries — literary, scientific,
sesthetic, political, and social ; indeed, it has been
said that if any three or four Oxford men find them-
selves agreeing upon any subject, their first impulse
is to say — " Go to, let us found a new Club on this
basis." Fifty years ago it was not so. A discussion

lOO MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

society of some eminence, called the " Decade," had
lately died a natural death, and, though here and
there a few lovers of poetry might combine to read
Dante or Shakespeare, I am not aware that any
society except ours existed for the purpose of freely
comparing opinions on the higher questions of politics
and morality, if not of religion. It has never been
settled who actually originated the idea of forming
such a society, not confined to one College, and more
or less on the model of the Cambridge " Apostles,"
but it is certain that it consisted of seven original
members, whom I mention in alphabetical order —
G. C. Brodrick, A. G. Butler, W. H. Fremantle,
G. J. Goschen, H. N. Oxenham, C. S. Parker, and
C. H. Pearson. Mr. W. L. Newman, Mr. Frederick
Harrison, Sir Henry Cunningham, Sir Godfrey Lush-
ington, and others, were elected in the first year or
two after our foundation ; Professor Dicey, Mr. James
Bryce, and Lord Bowen, joined us somewhat later.
We met to partake of a simple dessert in each other's
rooms by turns (I think) every fortnight, when an
Essay was read, and a discussion followed, but no one
rose from his place to deliver his opinion. The ques-
tions raised might perhaps appear to a more sophisti-
cated generation somewhat trite and commonplace,
often, for instance, touching upon theories of govern-
ment or problems of ethics, and seldom involving any
profound research. But, after all, they were just
such questions as ought to interest young minds just
entering upon their intellectual inheritance, and I am
by no means sure that it was not more profitable to

UNDERGRADUATE LIFE AT OXFORD loi

argue them out among ourselves, tlian to learn at
second hand all that had been said about them by
eminent writers. Certainly these disputations at our
Essay Society did much to clear up my own views on
several important subjects, not to speak of their
effect in lowering my estimate of my own philo-
sophical insight. Occasionally, strangers took part
in them, and Professor Conington, though almost
too senior a man to be a member, often entertained
the Society, and became a kind of permanent asso-
ciate. As some of us migrated to London or else-
where, the succession was kept up by fresh elections,
and (still in humble imitation of the "Apostles")
we used to hold an annual dinner at Greenwich or
London itself. For we always regarded ourselves as
an Academical Round Table, and, if we did not dis-
dain the object of " mutual improvement " as beneath
us, we did not by any means neglect social qualifica-
tions. Some years later another Society, called the
" Old Mortality," was founded on much the same
lines, and I was amused to see it described in a
recent volume as an original invention, the fact being
that among its first members were some who also
belonged to our Society, while others were men of
marked ability, but of a somewhat different type.
However, by this time the society-forming instinct
had begun to assert itself in the University ; the
Essay Society, no longer unique, almost lost its
raison d'Ure, and, after lasting about twenty years,
it perished of inanition. Some years ago, in concert
with Mr. A. G. Butler and the present Master of the

I02 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

University, I promoted a reunion of early members
at Oxford, and was gratified to see that old ties of
intellectual fellowship still maintained their vitality,
however far we had drifted apart in political or
theological opinion.

CHAPTER V

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD
■ 1854-1856

Remarkable characters in Oxford fifty years ago — Successes of my later
Oxford career — EncEenia of 1855 — Election to a Fellowship at
Merton College — Reminiscences of the Merton Common-room —
Bishop Patteson — Experience of coaching.

It is always difficult to compare one age with an-
other from an intellectual point of view. Probably
the Oxford of to-day contains a greater amount of
intellectual activity, as it certainly gives far more
encouragement to learning and scientific research,
than the Oxford of fifty years ago. But I am not
equally sure that, under the easier conditions of
modern Oxford life, force of character, or even in-
dependence of thought, is equally developed. I do
not say that in those days there were giants in the
land, but there were several Heads and Fellows of
Colleges, with marked individuality, whose names
are still remembered, short-lived as Oxford reputa-
tions are wont to be. I have already spoken of
Dr. Jenkyns, and of Jowett, destined to be his next
successor but one. Magdalen had for its President
the famous Dr. Routh, a really learned man, who
lived to his hundredth year, and died in 1855, after
some years of comparative seclusion, but in full pos-

I04 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

session of his faculties. The Dean of Christchurch
was Gaisford, a man of rough manners but kind
heart and strong will, much respected as a Greek
scholar in Germany as well as England. Hawkins,
the Provost of Oriel, had presided with much sagacity
over his College throughout the whole " Oxford Move-
ment," which may be said to have been actually born
and nursed in the Oriel Common-room. He, as well
as Macbride of Magdalen Hall and Benjamin Symons
of Wadham, lived to be more than ninety, and all
three, by virtue of a strong personality, exercised a
powerful influence in the University under its old
constitution. Jeune, the Master of Pembroke, was
a man of a different type, with little regard for
Academical traditions, who played a great part in
the University reforms of the same period, and proved
himself a vigorous administrator as Vice-Chancellor.
Dr. Wellesley, of New Inn Hall, was a much less
stirring personage, but was regarded as the highest
authority in Oxford on questions of artistic and
literary taste. Buckland had not yet disappeared
from the ranks of the Professors, or rather of the
Eeaders, but had at last ceased to lecture at Oxford,
having given an impulse to Natural Science by his
contagious enthusiasm which has never been fully
recognised. Other Professorial Chairs were held by
more or less notable men, such as Jacobson and Pusey
in Theology; Donkin, Baden-Powell, and Bartholo-
mew Price, in Mathematics; Daubeny in Botany,
Brodie in Chemistry, Halford Vaughan in Modern
History, and J. M. Wilson in Moral Philosophy.

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD 105

Of these, no doubt, the one most widely known
outside Oxford was Pusey. His erudition and social
position had made him the most valuable recruit of
the early Tractarians, and though his prestige in the
religious world had been recently shaken by the
declared Romanism of several among his trusted
associates, it was beginning to revive, and lasted
until his death. Arthur Stanley, the life and soul
of the Common-room at University College, resigned
his Tutorship before I took my degree, and was not
appointed Professor of Ancient History until 1856.
Conington was elected Professor of Latin in 1854,
and in the broad scholar-like treatment of his subject
has been excelled by none of his successors. Goldwin
Smith, his intimate friend, was still a Tutor of the
same College, and no more luminous intellect than
his — harmonising as it did with a rare gift of expres-
sion and style — has since appeared in modern Oxford.
Of Henry J. S. Smith I have already spoken. He
was a man whose mind could apply itself with equal
power and facility to any kind of work, intellectual
or practical. Some of his friends believed that, if he
could have concentrated it on Mathematics alone, he
might have rivalled the fame of Newton, but it is
certain that in that case he could not have adorned
Oxford society as he did, or made his influence felt
in every branch of Academical life. Congreve was
the leading Tutor of Wadham, and soon became
the Apostle of English Positivism, in which double
capacity he inspired disciples of remarkable ability
with a new conception of Philosophy, largely based

io6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

on history. Mark Pattison, then at his best, in my
judgment, filled a similar position at Lincoln, and
vigorously worked the College system which he after-
wards loved to disparage. His sensitive nature was
soured, however, by a bitter contest for the Rector-
ship in 1 85 1, resulting in the preference of another
candidate, and I doubt whether he ever afterwards
took a genial and kindly view of the world. This
contest led to an almost scandalous exchange of re-
criminations, actually breaking out into a war of
pamphlets. Mansel, of St. John's, afterwards Dean
of St. Paul's, was not yet famous as a theological
writer, but his many witty sayings were cherished
in Common-rooms, and his poetical squib on the
first University Commission, published under the
strange title of " Phrontisterion," exhibited consider-
able learning, as well as a great power of satire.
Thomson, afterwards Archbishop of York, was never
fully appreciated in Oxford, but he was a conspicuous
member of the same group, representing a transi-
tional period between the Tractarian agitation and
the subsequent triumph of Liberal ideas in Oxford.
Of this group, since Congreve's recent death, Goldwin
Smith is now the only survivor.

During my undergraduate career, a very impor-
tant change was made in the examination system.
One branch of this change was the introduction of
Moderations, in order to break the continuity of
idleness among passmen between " Little-go " and
" Great-go," and also to supply a standard of Honours
for Scholarship, independent of Philosophy and

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD 107

Ancient History. The other branch was the modi-
fication of the Final Classical School, coupled with
the reconstruction of the Final Mathematical School,
and the institution of two new Final Schools — that
of Natural Science, and that of Law and Modern
History. The University has amused itself ever
since by pulling to pieces and recasting the system
thus established, and few are now aware that it
included a feature long ago abandoned— I mean
the obligation of passing in two Schools, at least,
as a qualification for the B.A. degree. I was myself
the victim of this rule. Having been fortunate
enough to obtain a first class in the first Moderations
ever held (May 1852), I read for the Final Classical
Schools of November 1853. Though I lost two or
three months through illness, 1 was unwilling to put
off going in for that examination, and was again
placed in the first class, together with several old
friends, such as A. G. Butler, Lewis Campbell, W.
H. Fremantle, Goschen, (Mr. Justice) Kekewich,
Lord Lothian, and W. Stebbing. I then attempted
to master in less than a fortnight the minimum
required for a Mathematical pass, but failed to do
so — though I have always believed that I was
plucked in Euclid, not for geometrical ignorance,
but for proving earlier propositions by later ones.
However, being foiled in this way, I at once deter-
mined, if possible, to win the highest honours in
Law and Modern History. I had less than six
months to read for this examination, and I never
worked above five hours a day, but Stebbing and

io8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

myself both succeeded in getting first class honours
— a conclusive proof that the studies of Law and
Modern History were then in their infancy. Lord
Lothian alone was placed with us in the first class,
but it was understood that his performance greatly
surpassed ours, history being his favourite study.
During 1854-5, I '^^^ ^^^ only a candidate for the
Balliol and Oriel Fellowships, but for two Craven
Scholarships, then limited to Commoners of a certain
standing. In all of these competitions I had reason
to believe that I stood either second or third, and,
rightly or wrongly, I laboured under the impression
that I had fairly earned success in one of them.
However, though much disheartened, I competed in
the same twelvemonth for the Arnold Essay Prize
and for the Chancellor's English Essay Prize, writing
my two Essays on alternate days. Both of these
prizes were awarded to me in the Summer Term
of 1855, ill which Term I was also elected to an
open Fellowship at Merton College. The subject
of my Arnold Essay was " Roman Colonise under
the Empire," and I took much pains with it, but,
as it was not the fruit of original research, I
did not care to set a precedent by publishing it,
and it appeared for the first time in my " Political
Studies." The subject of the Chancellor's Essay was
" Representative Government in Ancient and Modern
Times," and the composition of it almost compelled
me to mature and formulate my own thoughts on
many important questions of politics. A consider-
able part of it was read in the Sheldonian Theatre

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD 109

at the Encaenia on June 20, 1855, and, by a happy-
accident, it was heard by a singularly brilliant
audience, including Lord Derby, who presided as
Chancellor, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Tennyson, Mont-
alembert, Mr. Buchanan, afterwards President of the
United States, Lord Houghton, and other more or
less notable persons. The consequence was that it
attracted more attention than it otherwise would, and
was the direct means of my introduction to journalism.
Lord Derby, having been an old school-fellow of my
father, wrote him a very kind letter about it, con-
taining some extremely gratifying criticisms of my
performance which I forbear to quote. Among these,
however, occurs one passage which is not without
interest, as coming from a veteran politician : " I
do not quarrel with what may appear to me (shall
I say to us ? ) a somewhat Utopian view of the per-
fectibility of human society, and the immaculate
motives of the Electoral Body. It is well that at
twenty-four there should be a somewhat superabun-
dant stock of faith to start with, to meet the rude
shocks which it will encounter, especially if engaged
in political life, before the age of fifty- six, and your
son's Essay shows him to be of that stamp of mind
on which experience will work its effect in moderating
the illusions of Theory." Such cautions against
youthful optimism, founded on the experience of
men who have sounded the depths of politics, are
seldom laid to heart by their juniors, but I feel
bound to confess that, in my case. Lord Derby's
fears have been justified.

no MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

In the meantime, inspirited by Jowett, I plucked
np courage to stand once more for a Fellowship, and
was elected at Merton College in May 1855. The
vacancy which I filled was caused by the death of
General Capell in his eighty-ninth or ninetieth year.
This veteran had long ceased to reside in the College,
though not to draw his salary. When he did come,
he imported the language of the mess-room into the
Common-room, but, so far as I could ascertain, his
only interesting reminiscence was the fact of his being
" shot at, like a pigeon," at the siege of Cadiz. The
next in seniority was the Rev. Edward Griffith, as he
would call himself, though his Christian name was
really Moses, who died at the age of ninety a year
or two later. Other senior Fellows were Henry
F. Whish, George Hammond, and George Tierney,
son of the famous politician, who died at ages
between eighty and ninety, the first some twenty-
five years ago, and the last two since I became
Warden in 1881. Of these, Whish and Hammond
retained their rooms and resided much in College
up to the last, whereas Tierney was never seen in
Oxford after 1840. The Warden, Dr. Bullock
Marsham, had been elected in 1826, and was destined
to attain the age of ninety-four. If he be added to
the list, the record of longevity in the Merton Com-
mon-room is somewhat remarkable, and never can be
matched in the future, since the lifelong tenure of
Fellowships has been abolished. All these relics of
that system were men of the old school, courteous,
gentlemanlike, and (in their own way) loyal to their

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD iii

College, which they regarded not exactly as a place
of education, but rather as a pleasant resort in which
sons of the landed gentry might profitably spend
three years before entering into possession of their
estates or launching forth into professions, and which
Fellows might use as a country house in Vacations.
Griffith, however, deserves more particular notice,
having been the subject of many good stories, which
I have been able to verify, and representing a type of
eccentric College recluses which is now wholly extinct.
He was in Holy Orders, but never would take
College preferment, and was content to waste the
whole of his life between his rooms at Oxford and
his lodgings at Bath. Yet he was a man of almost
ascetic habits, never carpeted his room, gave largely
in charity, and was reported to have thrown down
his own overcoat from the top of a coach to cover a
shivering bystander. A still more notable proof of
his sense of duty was his resignation of a sinecure
emolument for the purpose of endowing a resident
clergyman for one of the College livings. But he was
chiefly known to the Oxford world, and even to
his own brother-Fellows, as a privileged cynie, de-
lighting in churlish repartees, not unmixed with good-
humoured drollery. It would be easy, but useless,
to give specimens of these, because they largely
depended for their effect on his own comical appear-
ence and manner. During the later part of his life,
he always resided at Bath in Term-time and at Merton
during most of the Vacations, when the " Philistines,"
as he called the undergraduates, could not disturb

112 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

his serenity. At Bath he appreciated and expected
visits from old friends, and I remember that he used
to complain because my father, then Rector of Bath
and engrossed with clerical duties, could not be
incessantly calling upon him. At Oxford he often
found himself alone in the Long Vacation, but took
his solitary dinner in the Hall. One day he became
conscious of the presence of an undergraduate, who
happened to be in residence, on noticing whom he
exclaimed : " Oh ! an undergraduate ! Bring me a
screen." But when other Fellows were up, he usually
mingled with them in the Common-room, and took
part in College meetings.

I have been informed that when I was a
candidate for a Fellowship in 1855, and stress was
laid by some of his colleagues on the duty of electing
the man who might be placed first by the examiners,
Mr. Griffith announced that he had come up from
Bath to vote for my father's son, and would certainly
do so, whatever might be the result of the examination.
After an earlier Fellowship election, the new Fellow,
on being ushered into the Hall, was heartily wel-
comed by Mr. Griffith, who advanced to the front and
said : " I congratulate you, sir, and I consider it an
honour to the College that you have joined us."
Then, lapsing into one of those strange transitions
from courtesy to rudeness which he would sometimes
affect, he added in a loud whisper to his neighbour,
and pointing to the new-comer : " Who is that person,
sir ? I don't know him from a dog."

On another occasion I myself witnessed a speci-

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD 113

men of his rougher manner. It happened that he
was in the chair at a Common-room dinner in my
first Long Vacation, when Mr. Whish, the next to
him in seniority among the Fellows, came in with
the jaunty air peculiar to him, and remarked,
" Well, Mr. Griffith, how are you to-day ? " Where-
upon Mr. Griffith, turning upon him, and looking
at him "like a bull,'' as Plato would say, replied
sullenly, " Yes, it's much good that you wish me."
Happily, Mr. Whish rejoined more gently than
might have been expected of him ; but it was evi-
dent that some grudge, perhaps of fifty years' stand-
ing, had been harboured in the breasts of these
two old men, to reveal itself in this curious little
scene for the amusement of their juniors. Indeed,
Walter Ker Hamilton, afterwards Bishop of Salis-
bury, used to cite an earlier case, in which Mr.
Whish incurred the rebuke of Mr. Griffith for the
habitual indulgence in strong language of which
Hamilton had complained. Soon afterwards he
overheard Mr. Griffith rapping at Whish's door, and
exclaiming from the outside, "Mr. Whish, Mr.
Whish, Walter Ker says that, if you don't mend
your language, he will not dine with you."

One of his old cronies was the famous Dr. Frowd
of Corpus, and a story, not without a touch of
pathos, which has been told in various forms of
various other persons, is told with at least equal
probability of this eccentric pair. As they were
slowly tottering round Christ Church Walk together.
Dr. Frowd was overheard to remark, "Mr. Griffith^

H

114 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

what a pity it is that there are no characters in
Oxford nowadays. Why, when you and I were
young, Oxford was full of strange and original
characters ; I wonder what can have become of
them ! " To which Mr. Griffith, the shrewder man
of the two, was overheard to reply, "Did it never
occur to you, Dr. Frowd, that you and I may he the
characters oj the 'present day ? "

Among the junior Fellows, the most remark-
able was John Coleridge Patteson, first Bishop of
Melanesia, afterwards murdered by the natives at
Nukapu, in the South Sea Islands. I remembered
him as a cricketer at Eton, and had known him
as a B.A. of Balliol, when I was an undergraduate.
But he had already left Oxford, and I think had
actually started for New Zealand, when I was elected
Fellow of Merton, and I never met him there as
a colleague. It is needless to say that I heartily
admired his simple and saintly character, and I
received two or three letters from him after he went
out. In one of these he gave a proof of his con-
scientious loyalty to his College by asking me to
obtain renewed leave of absence for him, without
forfeiture of his Fellowship, on the ground that his
private means and official salary were not sufficient,
with the strictest economy, to cover the necessary
expenses of his missionary work. The contrast
between his conception of duty and that of such
Fellows as I have mentioned was certainly very
striking. Some years after his death, an epitaph
composed by me, and originally intended for Merton

LATER CAREER AT OXFORD 115

Chapel, was placed at the disposal of Bishops Selwyn
and Abraham, who caused it to be inscribed on a
brass tablet in memory of Patteson to be placed
in a church on Norfolk Island. Another junior
Fellow, but senior to me by four years, was Charles
Savile Roundell, one of my oldest friends, with
whom I always co-operated in College aflfairs. I
cannot refrain from recording one service which he
and I rendered the College, in persuading it to
rescind a resolution, already passed, which involved
the partial destruction of our old College Library.

After my election at Merton, I was obliged to
keep a year of residence as a Probationer Fellow,
and perhaps no year of my life has been so enjoy-
able. My recent successes had given me heart, and
I looked forward with confidence to my future,
though I had not yet made a definite choice between
the Bar and the Civil Service, both of which I
regarded as preparatory to a Parliamentary career.
During this year I took a few pupils reading for the
Classical or Modern History School, among whom
were the present Rector of Lincoln and Lord Clinton.
I also lectured on Modern History at Balliol, for the
late Dean of Durham, as well as at Merton. In the
summer of 1856 Mr. Walter Morrison, M.P., and
Mr. Markham Law were my pupils at Dresden, but
in the autumn of that year I settled in London,
having finally decided to read for the Bar.

CHAPTER VI

READING FOR THE BAR— THE WESTERN
CIRCUIT

1856-1862

Reading for tlie Bar in the chambers of E. BuUen and Lord Coleridge
— Reminiscences of the Western Circuit — Lord Bowen — Defence
of a prisoner charged with murder — Lord Campbell and Dr.
Lushington.

When I came up to London in 1856, my first
lodgings were in Davies Street, but in 1857 I
moved to 32A Mount Street, where I remained con-
tinuously for thirty-six years, and was only displaced
in 1 893 by the impending demolition of that and all
the adjoining houses involved in the Duke of West-
minster's improvement scheme. At that period there
were two modes of qualifying for the Bar, the one
by an unbroken attendance of a year on two courses
of lectures, the other by passing an examination.
Having run the gantlet of so many examinations,
and being advised that I should probably fail to
obtain a Studentship against candidates who might
have been trained for years in lawyers' offices, I
selected the former alternative, and attended those
lectures of Sir Henry Maine which he afterwards
developed into his treatise on " Ancient Law." At
the same time, after two or three months' private read-

READING FOR THE BAR 117

ing, I entered the chambers of Mr. Herman Prior at
Lincoln's Inn. Mr. Prior was an accomplished con-
veyancer, but just then business was very slack in his
chambers, and he used to prepare imaginary instruc-
tions for mortgages, settlements, wills, and other
deeds, purporting to take effect on a plot of land
which he owned at Eltham. I doubt whether so
many real operations of conveyancing were ever
performed upon an area of like extent with this
little estate, the corpus vile of our experiments. In
the autumn of 1857 I became the pupil of Mr.
Edward BuUen, the well-known special pleader, to
whom I shall always feel grateful as the best teacher
under whose instructions I ever came. There were
about ten of us in his pupil-room, and we found it
necessary to elect a chairman to keep order ; but
every one liked and respected Bullen. Instead of
merely giving us the run of his chambers, he would
come in and lecture us in class, for about an hour
and a half every morning, on some branch of law,
questioning us like a form-master at a public school,
and playing us off against each other. Once, when
he was discoursing on the Law of Contracts, one of
his pupils betrayed, or more probably affected, dense

stupidity. " Come, L ," said Bullen, " if your

tailor were to sue you upon his bill, what course

should you pursue?" "Sir," replied L , "in

that case, I really think I should appeal to his better
feelings." One saying of Bullen himself has dwelt
ever since in my own mind as having a far wider
significance than he contemplated at the moment :

ii8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

" People talk of easy cases. No easy case ever came
into my chambers." In other words, every case in
real life defies casuistry, being complicated with one
or more petty but material circumstances which
bafile the application of general rules. While I was
Bullen's pupil, I read quietly, and without the know-
ledge of my associates, for a Law Scholarship at the
London University, having first passed the LL.B.
examination. Happily, the competition for it was
not strong, and I was fortunate enough to obtain it.
In this year, too, I published my first pamphlet,
of which the subject was "Promotion by Merit," a
subject which had lately been thrust into prominence
by the disclosures of civil and military incompetence
during the Crimean War, and a later " Inquiry into
Public Ofiices." With the enthusiasm of youth, I
stoutly assailed the old system of Patronage, advo-
cating the substitution of Competition for all branches
of the public service, in the form of competitive
examination for clerkships and first commissions in
the Artillery and Engineers, and of discriminating
selection for all the higher positions. Even then I
was fully aware of the objections to a mere literary
test of capacity for active duties, and shrank from
recommending competitive examination for ordinary
regimental commissions. Further reflection has
strengthened my sense of these objections, and,
while I hold as strongly as ever that all appoint-
ments and promotions should be awarded by merit
and not by favour, I am less disposed to regard mere
intellectual superiority as the main factor in merit.

READING FOR THE BAR 119

There are great difficulties in admitting physical and
moral superiority to a share in competitions, but
these difficulties no longer seem to me insuperable,
and if I should re-write "Promotion by Merit," I
should largely modify its tone.

On leaving BuUen at the end of 1858, I went
for six months into the chambers of John Duke
Coleridge, afterwards Lord Coleridge, whom I always
found a kind friend. He did not profess to receive
pupils, but allowed me to make free use of all his
papers, and talk over legal questions with him after
he returned from the Court. I think he saw that,
in spite of my Law Scholarship and BuUen's instruc-
tions, my heart was not really in the Law, and he
was careful in revising any work that I did for him.
He did not pretend to be a profound lawyer, but he
impressed me as a sound lawyer ; and if he after-
wards relied somewhat too much on the labours of
others, it was not so at this stage of his career, when
he divided with Karslake the leading practice among
the juniors on the Western Circuit, just before they
both entered the ranks of Queen's Counsel together.
I have since regretted that I failed to profit as I
might by Coleridge's singularly wide acquaintance
with English literature, partly because our literary
sympathies were often in conflict. He never con
doned my defective admiration of Wordsworth, and
I was often shocked by the vehemence of his preju-
dices not only on literary but on many other sub-
jects. Still, he added to his rare conversational
powers a fine literary gift, and might probably have

I20 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

become eminent as an author, if he had concentrated
himself on that object. His rival, John Karslake,
who died at an early age, was a man of fine
physique, and universally popular, both with seniors
and with juniors, on the Western Circuit. His
knowledge of law was probably wider than Cole-
ridge's, and he possessed more racy mother-wit, but
he was far inferior to him in general culture. He
was a most conscientious worker, and his friends
were convinced that, if he would have consented to
delegate part of his business to others when he was
a law-officer of the Crown, he might have escaped
his premature breakdown, beginning with a loss of
eyesight, and ending with a decay of all his facul-
ties. But another cause of it was his practice of
plunging into the hardest physical exercise on
Scotch moors and mountains, without any prelimi-
nary training, during his Long Vacations. This
he told me himself, and though I did not venture
to remonstrate against it with one of so powerful
a frame, his doctor afterwards warned him that
persistence in it would be suicidal.

In the summer of 1859 I was called to the Bar,
and joined the Western Circuit myself, sharing
Coleridge's lodgings at Winchester, by his kind
invitation. Besides himself and Karslake, there
were then several leaders of great ability on the
Circuit, such as Montague Smith, Serjeant King-
lake, Sir Frederick Slade, and Collier, afterwards
Lord Monkswell, while several younger men, such
as Lord Lopes, were establishing a high reputation.

THE WESTERN CIRCUIT 121

Nevertheless, so great was the dearth of business
that, according to Coleridge's estimate, confirmed
by my own inquiries, not above seven or eight men
earned enough to clear their Circuit expenses, apart
from small appointments which they might hold.

Before I left the Circuit in 1862, it received a
brilliant recruit in the person of Charles Bowen,
afterwards Lord Bowen. I had known Bowen from
childhood, as his father was the senior curate of
the Abbey Church when my father became Rector
of Bath in 1839. As he went to Rugby and I to
Eton, we lost sight of each other until he came
up to Oxford in 1854, from which time we re-
mained intimate friends until the day of his death.
His life and character have been well depicted,
from the fullest personal knowledge, in Sir Henry
Cunningham's Memoir, to which I can add little.
With the brightest of intellects, a rare power of
expression, and the highest Academical reputation,
Bowen was not a great speaker either at Oxford
or at the Bar. Whether it was due to over-subtlety
of mind or over - refinement of temperament, he
lacked the rough homely wit which appeals to a
common jury, and the slashing prowess which tells
in the cut-and -thrust encounters of the Circuit. It
was through his connection with Coleridge, and the
opportunities which he found of showing his won-
derful ability in Coleridge's chambers, that he rose
to eminence in London business, and earned his pro-
motion to the Bench. I have always felt gratified
to know that, if I did not actually introduce Bowen

122 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

to Coleridge, I was the first person from whom
Coleridge heard of Bowen's fame at school and col-
lege, on mj showing him one of Bowen's scholar-
like articles on "Faithful Allies" in the Saturday
Review. It is hard to say whether Bowen or Cole-
ridge owed most to the alliance thus commenced,
which led to a lifelong friendship between them.
To me, the most impressive characteristic of Bowen
was a profound reserve, concealed behind a delicate
veil of irony, seldom pierced or lifted in the most
confidential intercourse. I could have wished that
his inner nature had been more accessible, but then
he would not have been Charles Bowen. Perhaps
in the eyes of others this inscrutable air enhanced
the charm of his personality, never greater than
when his soul dwelt apart with his family and
chosen friends, before he became a favourite of
select coteries in London society, and fell under
the spell of feminine homage. Not that even these
enervating influences could spoil the noble simplicity
of his true self.

To myself, Circuit society was somewhat disap-
pointing, as compared with that of Oxford Common-
rooms. There was plenty of good fellowship, and
some of those whom one met in Court or at the
mess were pleasant companions individually, but
"shop" and "chaff" were the chief materials of
general conversation, and I seldom heard an inter-
esting discussion at the mess-table. The old rules
of etiquette were still rigorously observed. The
prohibition of travelling by coach had, of course,

THE WESTERN CIRCUIT 123

become obsolete since the introduction of railways,
but it was a doubtful point whether it was lawful
to proceed from the railway station in an omnibus,
lest perchance the briefless young barrister might be
rubbing shoulders with solicitors. As to the im-
propriety of lodging at hotels there was no doubt
at all, and I well remember that a few of us juniors
were rebuked for staying a night or two at the
Queen's Hotel, Clifton — which might well be con-
sidered as separate from Bristol — and that, by one
or two of our seniors who themselves were guilty,
at those very Assizes, of what I must always con-
sider a most unprofessional act. We had not the
hierarchy of officials peculiar to the Northern Circuit,
but there were two important officers — the wine-
treasurer, who controlled the cellar reserved for us
at every assize-town ; and the baggage-master, who
presided over the great van which conveyed book-
boxes and other heavy articles from London to
Bodmin. This van, conducted by men who took
up luggage at a barrister's lodgings in one assize-
town and delivered it at his lodgings in the next,
was a special convenience to me when I twice " rode
the Circuit" in i860. Formerly, there were always
parties of barristers thus journeying on horseback,
but I traversed the distance from London to Exeter
alone, by two different routes, of course resting at
the assize -towns on the way. Having no local
interest, I seldom got a brief, except at the Somer-
setshire and Bath Sessions, which I attended, and
where I had a fair practice for about two years in

124 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

defence of prisoners. In this humble branch of
the profession I was singularly lucky, especially at
the outset, for I believe I defended six prisoners
(all but one guilty) with success before I knew what
it was to lose a case, and of all the defence-cases
entrusted to me 1 won more than I lost. I am
not aware that I showed any remarkable skill in
advocacy, but there were almost always some weak
points on the side of the prosecution which it was
my duty to bring out strongly, and which usually
justified the acquittal. Though I could wish all
my clients to have been innocent, I cannot say
that my conscience was shocked by defending those
whose guilt I suspected, nor can I understand the
scruples cherished by many excellent laymen on
this subject. If a counsel for the defence were
in a judicial position, charged with the responsibility
of trying his client in his own mind, and furnished
with the means of doing so eff'ectually, he would
no doubt be wrong in defending him publicly after
convicting him privately. But such is not the
system or theory of the English law. That system
is based on the assumption that justice is most
likely to be attained by a subdivision of functions,
the judge, the juror, the prosecuting counsel, and
the defending counsel having each his allotted part.
If any one of them were to go outside his own
part, the system would break down, and the ends
of justice might often be defeated ; but it is well
understood at the Bar that a counsel for the defence
has no more right to volunteer his own personal

THE WESTERN CIRCUIT 125

assurance of his client's innocence, tlian a counsel
for the prosecution has to volunteer his own personal
assurance of the prisoner's guilt.

I was once requested by the Judge of Assize —
the late Mr. Justice Vaughan-Williams — to undertake
the defence of a prisoner indicted for murder at the
Taunton Assizes. Though I would gladly have
declined the office, I felt myself bound to accept it,
and was at once informed that the prisoner wished to
have an interview with me. In ordinary cases, a
solicitor acts as intermediary between the accused
person and his counsel, who is not allowed to know
more than is expedient ; but in undefended cases like
this, where the counsel is appointed by the Court, he
must play the part of solicitor as well as barrister,
and, in fact, stands between his client and death. In
dealing with the poor man whom I had to defend, I
was most anxious not to become the recipient of any
confidences which might embarrass me, and had framed
my questions to him with this object in view ; but he
very soon let it appear that his own hand had struck
the fatal blow, though he alleged circumstances which
might either support an acquittal on grounds of
temporary insanity, or a verdict of manslaughter.
Having failed to obtain sufficient authority for the
former plea, I fell back upon the latter, and have
believed ever since that I might have succeeded had
not the Judge been deaf — an infirmity which obliged
him to retire shortly afterwards from the Bench.
By dint of placing each witness close to himself, he
managed to get the efi"ect of their evidence, but when

126 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

I rose to address the jury, he gave up any attempt
to listen in despair, probably fancying that he knew
exactly what a young counsel would say. The con-
sequence was that, when he came to charge the jury,
he grievously misstated the nature of my defence, and
ultimately left them no option whatever between an
absolute acquittal and a verdict of murder. I happen
to know that in this dilemma they all but adopted
the first alternative, but in the end they found the
man guilty of murder, with a strong recommendation
to mercy. The Judge sentenced him without holding
out the least hope of a respite, and a memorial in his
favour (drawn by me), having been numerously signed
in Taunton, was forwarded to the Home Office. The
reply was that the capital sentence had already been
commuted to one of transportation for life at the
instance of the Judge himself, who must have changed
his mind on reflection. This prisoner was among the
last convicts transported to Western Australia. I
remember two little incidents of this trial. When I
concluded my appeal to the jury, the attorney for
the prosecution whispered to me that, as I had
mentioned the prisoner's wife, it might be well for
me to know that a message had been received from
her intimating that, while she could not wish her
husband to be hanged, she trusted she might never
see him again. She attested the reality of this
sentiment by marrying another man a few months
afterwards, without any of the misgivings which
troubled Enoch Arden's wife. During my interview
with the prisoner, he showed me a kind of testimonial

THE WESTERN CIRCUIT 127

purporting to be signed on his behalf by many of the
great landowners of the neighbourhood, and declaring
that he was far too respectable a man to be capable
of a murder. This absurd document was all in his
own handwriting, and contained several words mis-
spelt, but he asked me whether I would advise his
sending it to the Judge. Having already the idea of
raising the plea of temporary insanity, I replied that
I thought it would do no harm, for I hoped it might
predispose the Judge's mind to entertain such a plea.
However, my design miscarried, and when the Judge,
assuming the black cap, proceeded to pronounce
sentence, he actually treated "this wicked forgery"
as an aggravation of the crime.

I had taken chambers, in 1859, with Dudley
Campbell, the youngest son of Lord Campbell, the
Lord Chancellor, who had been my fellow-pupil at
BuUen's. These chambers were situated in Mitre
Court Buildings, Temple, facing the river, which in
that year of drought was a great nuisance, as the
Main Drainage Scheme had not been carried out. I
retained my share of them for several years after I
gave up the Bar, finding them useful for purposes of
literary work. I came to know Lord Campbell
through his son, and received much kindness from
him, staying with him once at Hartrigge, near
Jedburgh, and dining with him on one or two
occasions, of which the last was shortly before his
death. He was a man of plain speech and simple
manners, with a comprehensive grasp of law in all
its branches which is rare even among Judges.

128 MEMORIES AND IMRRESSIONS

Though he died suddenly, and was found to have
been in perilous health for some time, he looked the
picture of a strong old man, and told me at the age
of eighty that he had never lost a tooth, adding that
he thought such a fact should be engraved on his
tombstone. His contemporary, Dr. Lushington,
whom I knew more intimately through his son (the
present Sir Godfrey), survived him for more than ten
years, and died past ninety years of age, being one
of three nonagenarians who had been engaged as
counsel on Queen Caroline's trial. He was the very
type of a genial and gracious patriarch, full of
interesting reminiscences, which he delighted to re-
call for the benefit of younger men. One of these
was the sudden interruption of a play at some London
theatre, when the manager came forward with the
news of Marie Antoinette's execution and ordered the
house to be closed, with the full assent of the
audience. The last time that I saw Dr. Lushington
was on his return journey from Oxford, to which he
had come to support Arthur Stanley against a bitter
opposition on his appointment to the post of Select
Preacher. Dr. Lushington never recovered the efiiects
of this journey.

CHAPTER VII

JOURNALISM
1860-1873

Reviews and leading articles — Mr. Delane — Anonymous journalism —
Variety of subjects treated — Duty of a journalist — Life of a
journalist — -Public-spirited conduct of the Times.

Soon after the publication of my Essay on Eepre-
sentative Government, a copy of it was placed in the
hands of the late Mr. John Walter, the principal and
managing proprietor of the Times. The result was
that he invited me to become a writer for that journal,
and introduced me to Mr. Delane, its well-known
Editor. Having taken advice on this welcome offer,
I expressed a wish to defer the contribution of lead-
ing articles until I should have completed my law
studies and made a start at the Bar — undertaking,
however, to write occasional reviews of books in the
meantime. This I did, beginning with reviews of
Stanley's " Sinai and Palestine," Grote's twelfth
volume, a volume of Thiers's " Consulate and Em-
pire," and other historical works. I also contributed
a few miscellaneous articles to the Saturday Review,
but was so little satisfied with the suppression of
others, after receiving the Editor's approval, that
my connection with it was broken off by myself It

I30 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

was not until i860, at the end of the Summer Circuit,
that I decided to embrace journalism seriously, and
made fresh overtures to Mr. Delane. He at once
accepted them, and arranged that I should make my
dihut in the dull season. My first "leader" ap-
peared on August 18, i860, and from that time until
July 10, 1873, I was a regular writer of leading
articles, though not a member of the permanent
staff. One misgiving which haunted me at the out-
set proved entirely delusive. It was the fear that I
should be expected to write strictly to order, and to
advocate views opposed to my own convictions. A
little reflection satisfied me that it would be wiser to
put aside bugbears of this kind, since the supposed
difficulty might never occur, and, if it did occur, I
might rely on the good sense of the Editor to relieve
me from it. This is exactly what happened about
a year later, when I was asked to criticise un-
favourably a measure of which I had been an active
promoter. On my appealing to Mr. Delane, he
promptly substituted another subject, and placed
the first in the hands of some other contributor,
who no doubt honestly took a line which I could
not have adopted. It is curious how little one saw,
or even knew, of one's collaborateurs ; indeed, it
was justly said of the Times under Delane that it
" kept its beasts in separate cages." I more than
suspected two or three friends of being engaged in
the same occupation as myself, but it was never
mentioned between us, nor did we ever meet at
the office. Delane's communications with me were

JOURNALISM 131

mostly in writing. I hardly ever chose my own
subject, but sometimes received a requisition for
an article at my lodgings soon after breakfast, some-
times at my chambers in the Temple about four
o'clock in the afternoon. At the end of August and
in September I often led a very solitary life, break-
fasting and lunching alone, still meditating on my
subject, finding no companion for my constitutional
ride in Rotten Row, and dining at my Club so late
that no stragglers remained in the dining-room. It
is certainly a great drawback of journalism carried
on under a strict incognito, that you never receive a
cheering word from a friend, and can hardly venture
to ask advice on a difficult subject without revealing
the secret. Against that, however, must be set the
inward gratification of knowing that your produc-
tions will be read and your views imbibed daily by
hundreds of thousands, instead of by the very
limited circle which might be attracted by your own
name on a title-page.

My relations with Mr. Delane were always most
friendly, and I share the general opinion of all who
came into contact with him that he was second to
none as an Editor. He was not a learned or even
a distinctively literary man, still less was he a keen
partisan, nor did his power consist in exercising a
personal magnetism over his stafi". But he was a
shrewd, genial, and open-minded man of the world,
with a large experience of human affairs, personally
acquainted with many of the chief actors on the
European stage as well as in the political arena of

132 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

his own country, independent in judgment, fearless
of responsibility, and most conscientious in his devo-
tion to work. In temperament he was not unlike
Lord Palmerston, who represented his political views
better than any one else ; but those who saw him at
Lady Palmerston's evening parties were grievously
mistaken if they fancied that he was most at home
in the atmosphere of salons, or allowed social dis-
tractions to interfere in the smallest degree with his
editorial duties. On the contrary, he was almost
always at his post by half-past ten in the evening,
never to quit it until four in the morning ; he took
breakfast when others took luncheon, and was busily
engaged with interviews and correspondence during
all the earlier part of the afternoon, or perhaps,
during emergencies, up to dinner-time. It was not
his business to write articles, but he possessed in a
rare degree the art of inspiring them by short and
pithy notes, suggesting, but not dictating, the line
to be taken. If these notes could be published,
they would show how complete, yet how easy, was
his grasp, not only of home and foreign affairs, but
of all the subjects, grave or gay, which interest the
readers of newspapers. In looking through other
letters of his which now lie before me, I am chiefly
struck by the kind consideration for my own health
and feelings which several of them show. He speaks
little of himself, but always cheerfully until his final
breakdown. In one letter, written in September,
he says : " I have not stirred from this place since
I last saw you, and I believe not a column has been

JOURNALISM 133

published in the Times which had not some of my
handwriting in the margin. I hope, however, to
make a start northwards next week, and to go
straight among the deer at once. I only hope they
will wait for the lovely new Whitworth with which
I propose to assail them." He was fully aware of
my Parliamentary aspirations, but always dissuaded
me from giving up journalism in the meantime.
One of his notes on this subject, referring to the
Jamaica question, will serve as a specimen of his
paternal rebukes. " I humbly think that, until you
obtain a seat, you exercise as large an influence as
most private M.P.'s by writing as good articles as
you do on your own subjects. I am sure all
Buxton's speeches did not have as much efiect as
your articles on the Jamaica aflfair, nor has Forster
afibrded so efi'ective a support to Cardwell as you
have been able to do." I am really ashamed to read
over, after the lapse of twenty-six years, his friendly
offers to retain my services on terms allowing me the
maximum of liberty. When I felt, at last, that I
must choose between journalism and politics, I re-
ceived the following characteristic note from him :
" I am very sorry to hear that you propose to
separate from us, and, had I the smallest hope of
success, would do my best to shake your resolution.
I can, however, only express my sincere regret, and
assure you that, whenever you propose to return,
the strayed sheep will find the gate of the fold wide
open, the pasture inside as fresh as ever, and a warm
welcome on the part of the shepherd."

134 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

While my engagement lasted, I never found
him unduly censorious ; he scarcely ever corrected
what I had written and never altered its sense,
though he would occasionally strike out a sentence,
or even a paragraph which might commit the paper
too far, or which later intelligence had falsified. Of
course it sometimes became necessary, on this last
ground, to sacrifice a whole article, especially when
it had been composed in the morning or afternoon,
and conflicted with telegrams received late at night.
This was one disadvantage of writing before dinner ;
another was that all the heavy work, such as that
of getting up blue-books, was naturally thrown
upon the early workers — of whom I was generally
one. When I happened to write at night, I
observed that, for the most part, the subjects were
lighter, and seemed to suggest their own treatment.
Since the great development of telegraphic news,
I believe that a much larger proportion of leading
articles is produced by the light of the midnight oil,
and, if the journalist can only accustom himself to
sleep well into the morning, I suspect that his work
is done with less expenditure of nervous power.
But it is vain to expect articles dashed ofi" in a
couple of hours to exhibit the same care in arrange-
ment and the same finish of style which can be
attained if more time be allowed, and which the
public taste used to exact more strictly than it now
does. As for myself, having a thorough respect
for my work, whenever I had the day before me,
I always took as much pains as I could to do my

JOURNALISM 135

subject justice, buying or borrowing the necessary
materials, looking up books of reference, and dealing
witb all important questions as if (to use Delane's
own phrase) I had been writing a State paper.
Doubtless, the result was less smart and sensational
than it might otherwise have been, but it was at
least safer, and I can now look back at it without
regret.

The salutary rule which forbids an anonymous
journalist to identify himself as the author of any
particular leading article is no longer observed, I
fear, as it ought to be. However this may be, I
do not propose to violate it, by taking credit for a
single one of about 1600 leading articles which I
contributed to the columns of the Times, and which
have been carefully indexed. By the aid of this
Index, however, I may venture to give some idea
of their range and scope, premising that I have no
reason whatever to claim greater versatility than
any one of my colleagues or successors. I find,
then, about 160 articles under the head of "United
States," covering every branch and stage of our
relations with them during a very critical period ;
and that, in spite of the fact that, for some three
years of the Civil War, I was seldom invited to
write on American affairs, owing to my known
sympathy with the cause of the Union. Ireland
is represented by more than 170 articles, dealing
with such topics as the Church question, the Land
question, the Education question as affecting Irish
Schools and Universities, the Irish Poor-La w, Irish

136 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Agriculture, the social condition of the country,
Fenianism, and Home Eule. In mentioning these
last topics, I am reminded of two facts which,
I think, are not appreciated, if they are known at
all, by the rising generation. The first is that
Fenianism was the immediate product of the
American Civil War, and that many of its first
champions were filibustering soldiers disbanded from
the Federal or Confederate armies. The second is
that Home Eule was the immediate product of
discontent among Irish Protestants, caused by the
destruction of the Irish Church. I speak the more
confidently on this point, because I wrote several
articles on this new phase of Irish Nationalism,
which resulted in the formation of a " Home Govern-
ment Association," with its head-quarters in Dublin
before the end of 1870. I may say that I have
myself been credited with the invention of the
phrase " Home Rule," nor is it easy to find authority
for it earlier than an article of mine, speaking of a
"Home Rule party," which appeared in the Times
on February 9, 1871, and another article of mine
on the "Past and Future Relation of Ireland to
Great Britain" which appeared in Macmillan's
Magazine for the following May. But, apart from
the fact that, had I coined such a phrase, I must
needs remember it, the context shows in both eases
that I was using a term almost current. Mr. Butt
had already published and presented me with a
pamphlet on "Irish Federalism," which fully de-
veloped a Home Rule scheme, as it would now be

JOURNALISM 137

called, though he did not call it so, and I have no
doubt that some clever member of the " Green-
Orange" faction, the result of a temporary alliance
between Protestant malcontents and Catholic
Nationalists, suggested that "Home Rule" would
be a shorter and more telling watchword than
either "Federalism" or "Home Government." Let
me add that, in my opinion, Mr. Butt's elaborate
scheme of "Federalism" was more statesmanlike,
more symmetrical, and not less practicable, than
either of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bills.

The other topics represented in this Index of
articles almost defy analysis or classification, so fan-
tastic are they in their variety. Every European
country and every important country in the world
has its separate head, under some of which occur
great historical events, like the Danish, the Austro-
German, and the Franco-German wars, the emancipa-
tion of serfs in Russia, and the progressive conquests
of Russia in Central Asia, with the international
disputes arising out of them. Every important
colony, too, is the subject of many articles, some of
whose titles recall bygone crises, such as the Maori
Wars, the abolition of transportation to Australia,
the Fenian raids into Canada, and, above all, the
suppression of the Jamaica revolt by Governor Eyre.
India, of course, claims a number of articles, re-
minding one that famine, pestilence, and financial
stress, have always taxed the energies of its Govern-
ment. Questions of Home-policy naturally fill a
still larger space in the Index. Several of these are

138 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

of the first magnitude, as, for instance, Parliamentary
Reform, Law Reform (including the Judicature Act),
and Army Reform (including the Abolition of Pur-
chase). Among the minor, but still very grave
questions of Home-policy which here find a place, are
University Reform in all its aspects, Capital Punish-
ment, the amendment of our Marriage Laws, the
difficulties arising out of the Lancashire Cotton
Famine, and the Regulation of Merchant Shipping
under the impulse of Mr. PlimsoU's agitation. Church
questions even then occupied much of public atten-
tion, embracing, as they did, the attack on Essays
and Reviews as well as on Bishop Colenso, besides
controversies on the Royal Supremacy, Ritualism,
and the Confessional. Every public man of note has
his niche in this Index, and almost every memorable
incident in the period between i860 and 1873 sup-
plies a theme for an article. Celebrated murders,
trials, wrecks, explosions, Alpine and other accidents,
strikes, London improvements, exploring expeditions,
University boat-races. Public School cricket matches,
prize fights — each in turn came in for discussion,
figuring in the same motley list with the Suez Canal,
the Great Exhibition of 1862, the Prince of Wales's
marriage, the Balaclava charge (on an action for
libel), the Clerkenwell outrage, the cattle-plague,
the epidemic of garrotte robberies, the failure of
Overend & Gurney, and the famous Tichborne Case
— which last subject cost me the greatest efi"ort of
concentration which I ever attempted. Sometimes
leading articles took the form of essays, as, for

JOURNALISM 139

instance, on Spiritualism and Darwinism in the
infancy of its development ; but, however trivial or
however lofty the subject, Delane expected it to be
treated in good simple English, capable of being
translated into Latin Prose, without slang and with-
out technicality. To this rule his writers instinctively
conformed ; all of them, so far as I know, had to
deal, as I had, with every class of materials ; and I
suspect that, except here and there, no one but
Delane himself could have detected the hand of any
particular writer in any particular article. I must
say that I felt a satisfaction in knowing that no
reader, lighting upon an article of mine, could put it
aside as the work of a young man with little experi-
ence or authority, but that, if he cared to read it at
all, he must needs judge it upon its merits. This is,
in my opinion, the supreme advantage of anonymous
journalism. It seems to me quite right that peri-
odicals should admit signed articles, and I now prefer
myself to write under my own name ; but when I
remember all the rubbish which I have read with an
eminent signature attached to it, probably command-
ing a fancy price and an immense audience, I realise
how much is gained by compelling the public to read
the comments of the Daily Press with a more or less
open mind. Nor have I the least doubt that, if
leading articles were signed, they would often become
far more bitter and offensive in tone than is now the
case under the mask of anonymous writing.

To persons who have no practical acquaintance
with journalism, it may appear strange, if not mon-

I40 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

strous, that any single writer should presume to
handle such a variety of questions, and quite easy
so to apportion subjects that no one shall write on
anything outside his own special province. But the
slightest consideration will show that no such com-
plete division of labour would be practicable. In
order to retain the services of a really good staff,
each member of it must have the promise of
tolerably regular employment. It would not be
worth the while of an able writer to hold himself
ready to supply an article, at the shortest notice,
if he were not likely to be wanted above once a
week or once a fortnight. He must have some
assurance that he will be wanted three or four
times a week, if not oftener, and this is only pos-
sible if the principle of specialism be abandoned.
Moreover, as Delane was fond of insisting, a jour-
nalist should not pretend to be a public instructor
in a Professorial sense, to guide a policy, or to
speak as if he were absolute master of his subject.
His true function is to comment on the events
of the day, with a wider and more recent knowledge
than most of his readers, and, if possible, in an
effective style, but without the prejudice of advo-
cacy or the affectation of infallibility. I learn from
the life of the late Mr. Henry Eeeve that he was
largely responsible for articles on foreign affairs
in the Times before my connection with it, and
no doubt exceptional qualifications like his may
sometimes be wisely utilised in this way. But I
contend that most journalists ought to be " all-

JOURNALISM 141

round " writers, and prepared to grapple with almost
anything that comes to hand. There is no im-
posture in thinking out e very-day questions and
formulating ideas on behalf of the public, which
has no leisure for either process ; and I believe that
leading articles would compare favourably, as re-
gards independence of thought and condensation
of matter, with most political speeches, both in and
out of Parliament. In one respect, however, the
journalist is at a great disadvantage as compared
with the statesman. He is expected, perhaps on
the slightest possible information, to notice and
explain incidents or utterances just reported by
telegraph, whereas a Minister can either keep silence
or decline to commit himself until he is more fully
informed. Nevertheless, I can truly say that, in
writing on great measures or international disputes,
I felt that I (with my unknown comrades) was doing
the work of an unrecognised statesman, and exer-
cising a greater influence on public opinion than any
politician, except a very few in the foremost rank.
It is true, I was not as free to set forth every shade
of my own innermost convictions as if I had been
writing under my own name ; but I am not sure
that my articles lost much in force by this limited
suppression of individuality, with its besetting temp-
tations of personal vanity. It is not always one's
best thoughts which clamour most loudly for ex-
pression ; and, as I read over these articles by the
light of later experience, I can see how much of my
own character found its way into them after all.

142 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and how probable it is that what I pruned away
with sorrow was cruder and less mature than what I
retained.

The life of an ordinary journalist is, of course,
very tame and uneventful by comparison with that
of a War correspondent, and even in feats of rapid
production the latter must certainly bear the palm,
especially if we allow for the extreme difficulties
under which he must often write. Still, many an
ordinary journalist develops a marvellous power of
improvising, to which I never pretended, being per-
haps too fastidious in style, and too scrupulous (if
that be possible) about the substance of my articles.
Even 1, however, was sometimes compelled to make
unwonted exertions, such as writing almost the
whole of three leading articles in one day ; while on
another occasion, if I mistake not, three articles of
mine, but not all written on the same day, appeared
side by side. One of my humble tours deforce was
a political biography of Count Cavour, written on
a sudden emergency. The news of his death arrived
about three in the afternoon, and, strange to say,
took London by surprise. Delane for once was
caught unprepared, and appealed to me so urgently
that I could not refuse to write — not a leading
article, but a somewhat elaborate obituary notice,
which has since been republished in my " Political
Studies." Few writers could have been less qualified
to execute such a task, for I was very ill informed
about Italian politics, and did not fully share the
admiration of Cavour felt by many of my friends.

JOURNALISM 143

Moreover, of the only two biographical records
which I could procure (after considerable delay),
one was in Italian, which I did not understand,
the other being in French, and both ended before
the most remarkable part of his career began.
Meanwhile, I was ransacking my own memory and
some other scanty materials which I possessed.
Every one has more in his mind on any given
subject than he can realise, until he comes to rally
it under high pressure. So it proved in this case.
About five o'clock I made a start, and though I
had to dine out, I escaped speedily from the dining-
room, and completed two columns and a half by
one or two o'clock in the morning. I have reason
to believe that my hasty composition not only
passed muster with the general public, but was
approved by persons familiar with Italian history,
one of whom afterwards assured me that, while he
noticed some omissions, he could find no material
errors in it. What amuses me now, in reading it
over, is the suggestion of reserved knowledge which
pervades it, whereas all my goods were really ex-
posed in the shop window. But this is an art
common to all practised journalists, and, indeed,
is cultivated successfully by Oxford candidates in
Fellowship examinations. A difi"erent experience
was that of writing beforehand leading articles in-
tended to appear on the day following the deaths
of two very eminent personages. One of these, who
shall be nameless, survived my article by about six
months ; the other weathered a serious illness and

144 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

lived on for two or three years, by which time it was
necessary to add a few touches and bring the article
" up to date."

When I look back at my short journalistic career,
extending from my thirtieth to my forty-third year,
I cannot but feel that it was a failure, so far as it
did not serve the purpose for the sake of which I
entered upon it — that of preparing me for Parlia-
mentary life. Moreover, it cut me off from the
bracing influences of an open profession, including
the advantage of friendly co-operation and even of
friendly rivalry with one's fellows. All my work,
as I have said, was done in the dark, without a word
of encouragement or advice ; but, on the other hand,
much of it was of a far higher order, and called
one's best faculties into far more frequent play, than
ordinary professional business. One other reflection
which I feel bound to record is my constant sense
of the public-spirited and honourable principles on
which the Times has ever been conducted. I often
differed in opinion or judgment from the late Mr.
Walter, but I do not believe that a more honest or
conscientious man ever existed ; still less do I believe
that either he or Mr. Delane was ever actuated by
sinister or unworthy motives in the line which they
adopted on questions of the day. Had it been so,
though I was not behind the scenes in the manage-
ment of the paper, it is simply impossible that, in
the course of thirteen years' connection with it, I
should never have found reason to suspect any such
thing, as the ignorant public often did. In one

JOURNALISM 145

instance which I remember, people were startled
by a strong article on the result of a celebrated
trial, which seemed inconsistent with the supposed
prejudices of the Times, and was forthwith attri-
buted to some base inspiration. Now, as a matter
of fact, that article was written by myself in the
middle of the night, after a patient review of the
whole case ; and not only had I no bias either way,
but I did not know until the last to what conclusion
I should be led. Still less did I know whether
Delane would allow me a free hand to state this
conclusion plainly, but he did so, on my consulting
him, at no little sacrifice of his own private inclina-
tion, simply because justice required it. Assuredly,
what happened then had constantly happened before,
and is constantly happening now. Humanum est
errare, and it may have been a grave error on the
part of the Times to favour during two or three
years the cause of the Southern Confederacy in
America. But, if it erred, it erred honestly, in
company with Mr. Gladstone and other leading
politicians of the highest character. There was
much to be said for regarding the principle of State
Eight as more sacred than Federal Union, for desir-
ing to see a balance of power on the North American
Continent, and for declining to welcome the war as
a crusade for the abolition of Slavery, which Presi-
dent Lincoln's Government had expressly disclaimed ;
while, if anything could justify a tone of hostility
towards that Government, it was the outrageous
language and attitude which its leading supporters

K

146 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

in Congress and the Press had adopted towards
Great Britain.

Equally honourable — if I may venture to express
an opinion — were the motives actuating the con-
ductors of the Times in publishing the famous
series of articles on "Parnellism and Crime," how-
ever doubtful it may be whether the publication
was ultimately for the benefit of the Unionist cause.
They believed, and justly believed, that they had
the means of exposing an infamous conspiracy ; they
vainly challenged a prosecution for libel ; when the
Special Commission was appointed, they spontane-
ously undertook the burden and enormous expense
of making good their charges ; they did make good
their charges on most of the material issues, and
they rendered a signal public service by so doing.
Unfortunately they raised a side-issue, of no great
importance in itself, by undertaking to prove the
genuineness of the so-called " Pigott Letters," and
because they here failed, the damning verdict of
the Special Commission on the character of the
Land League and its organisers has received much
less attention than it deserved, and has even
been quoted as an acquittal. This was perhaps
inevitable, but those who review the whole story
calmly and impartially must, I think, recognise that,
wise or unwise, the action of the Times was eminently
patriotic throughout, and quite as worthy of national
gratitude as its bold denunciation of a famous com-
mercial fraud in the last generation.

CHAPTER VIII

ELECTION CONTESTS

Woodstock, 1868 and 1874 Monmouthshire, 1880

Overtures from constituencies — First contest at Woodatock — Election
address — Village meetings — The hustings — Invitation from Eves-
ham — Second contest at Woodstock — Lord Randolph Churchill —
Contest in Monmouthshire.

I HAVE already said that I always regarded journalism
chiefly as a training for politics, and, though I could
barely have afforded it, I would gladly have stood
for a seat in Parliament at the General Election of
1865. Before this election, as well as before those
of 1868, 1874, and 1880, I was more or less in
negotiation with a larger number of constituencies
than I should care to specify, with a view to coming
forward as a decided, though moderate, Liberal. I
soon found, however, that good chances on the Liberal
side were mostly reserved for local candidates, or for
rich men prepared to give money or money's worth
for the honour of being elected. Most of the openings
proposed to me, therefore, were very unpromising,
and 'in some cases the local wire-pullers insisted on
holding a kind of competitive examination by inviting
would-be candidates to speak against each other before
the Liberal caucus. This humiliation I steadily de-
clined to undergo, holding that no candidate worthy

148 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

of a nomination should be expected to solicit it pub-
licly, or to come before a popular meeting of the
Party except as recommended by its responsible
leaders. At all events, as I look over the list of
twenty or thirty boroughs and counties from which
I received overtures in the course of some twenty
years, I observe that in all but very few the chance
offered proved to be a losing one. In 1868 a tem-
porary illness, caused by the great heat of that
memorable summer, obliged me to give up my in-
tended candidature for the borough of Cambridge,
where the prospects were hopeful, but, after a month's
rest in Scotland, I entered upon a contest for the
borough of Woodstock. This little borough had re-
turned two members until the Reform Act of 1832,
when it would certainly have been disfranchised with
many others, had it not belonged politically as well
as territorially to the Marlborough family, which
supported the Whig Ministry. Accordingly, it was
deprived of one member only, and extended, for the
sake of appearances, by the addition of all the villages
immediately surrounding Blenheim Park, in which
the Duke of Marlborough was chief land-owner. Thus
rehabilitated, it contained some 300 voters before
the introduction of Household Suffrage in 1867, and
some 1 100 when I stood for it in 1868. I believe
most of my friends thought my enterprise a forlorn
hope, and wondered that I should have undertaken
it ; but I had more confidence in the Liberal sym-
pathies of the agricultural labourers, who formed
about one-half of the constituency, and the result

ELECTION CONTESTS 149

showed that I was not far wrong. I opened the
campaign late in August, and was engaged for two
months and a half, with the aid of many loyal friends,
in canvassing and educating in the alphabet of the
Liberal creed these little communities of villagers,
most of whom had never voted before, and some of
whom were actually breaking stones on the road.
No electioneering work could well be rougher ; we
spoke not only in public-house rooms, but oftener in
the open air, from carts and waggons and the tops of
walls. My election address had been far too compre-
hensive for* the simple population of Woodstock and
the neighbouring villages, being, in fact, intended to
be the overture of a political career. It dealt with
all the questions of the day, including Household
Suffrage, the Ballot, the Disestablishment of the Irish
Church, the reform of Irish land-tenure. Education
in all its branches. Church rates, the Combination
Laws, Law Eeform, Civil Service Eeform, Municipal
Keform, Poor-Law Eeform, Licensing Eeform, and
Local Government Eeform, anticipating the creation
of County Councils. It also touched on Foreign
Affairs from a pacific standpoint, anticipating the
Czar's scheme by expressing the hope " of seeing the
moral power of England exerted in bringing about
a general disarmament and a permanent system of
international arbitration."

I am not sure how many of the cottagers in
the hamlets round Woodstock mastered or studied
this ambitious programme, but our speeches were
simple enough, treating mainly of questions affect-

I50 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

ing the interests of farmers and cottagers, with
the addition of popular education, flogging in the
army, and the Irish Church. This was, of course,
the great issue on which Mr. Gladstone had
challenged the verdict of the country ; but, as
many voters of Woodstock had not so much as
heard that there was an Irish Church, it became
necessary to set it up before we knocked it down ;
nor did we find it easy to awaken Protestant en-
thusiasm in favour of abolishing a bulwark of Pro-
testantism. In spite of this flaw in their political
knowledge, they were probably more intelligent about
politics two years before the Education Act than
some rural constituencies are now, almost thirty
years after it ; a fact which I attribute to frequent
contests at Woodstock during the previous genera-
tion, though mere householders did not then possess
the franchise. At the close of our evening meetings,
we used to invite any of the audience who had been
convinced by our arguments to come forward and
have their names taken down (by torchlight) in a
book. As the ballot did not then exist, we had the
means of ascertaining how many of the promises so
entered were kept, and it is interesting to know that
very few were broken. Indeed, I may say that the
number of votes recorded for me (about 480) almost
exactly tallied with the number for which I had taken
credit in my canvassing -book, the diff'erence being
that some thirty on which I had counted failed me,
but some thirty which I had marked as " doubtful "
proved to be favourable. We had a lively scene on

ELECTION CONTESTS 151

the hustings, where I confronted my opponent, Mr.
Barnett, and his supporters for the first time. The
mob was clearly for me, and when the poll was de-
clared, stones were thrown freely at them until I
intervened and succeeded in restoring some kind of
order. Still, Mr. Barnett and his escort were some-
what roughly handled in crossing the market-place,
and one policeman became the laughing-stock of the
spectators because, having been struck by a full ink-
bottle and besprinkled with its black contents, he
mistook these for his own blood, and asked leave to
fall out, as if seriously wounded. It is needless to
add that it was long before he heard the end of it
from the rest of the force. I had studiously abstained
from resting my candidature on any but political
grounds, and, in particular, from exciting local ani-
mosities against Blenheim Palace. In the course of
this contest, however, I became engaged in a corre-
spondence with the Duke of Marlborough regarding
the alleged coercion of voters by his agent, which
amused the public for a time, and found its way into
some Continental as well as American newspapers.
I was only defeated by twenty-one votes, and, though
we had little or no evidence of bribery, my political
friends were advised that a petition against Mr.
Barnett's return might probably succeed on the
ground of intimidation. But the idea was aban-
doned, in deference to my own judgment ; for, while
I felt assured that many voters had been influenced
by the fear of losing their cottages, their allotments,
their employment, or their doles of blankets and

152 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

coals, I saw clearly that no overt threat would have
been necessary to awaken this fear in the villages
round Blenheim, and that it would have been most
difficult to bring home such a charge.

In February 1874, having been sounded on the
subject of standing for Evesham, I was invited to
a political dinner there, and a speech that I made
on that occasion was extremely well received. The
next day I returned to London, and on the following
morning before breakfast received the startling news
that Gladstone had advised an immediate dissolu-
tion of Parliament. Within twenty-four hours, a
requisition was signed by more than one-third of
the electors of Evesham, urging me to become a
candidate. Being already pledged conditionally to
stand again for Woodstock, I could not but defer
my reply for a day, but went down to Evesham, so
that I might be able to take the field at once, in
case I should be free to do so. Fate, however, de-
cided otherwise. While I was in earnest conference
with the leading Evesham Liberals, a telegram
arrived which convinced me that I could not
honourably desert the Woodstock Liberals. I have
seldom gone through such an agony of deliberation,
but, my decision once taken, I wrote a farewell
address in the middle of the night, and hastened
to Woodstock. My opponent. Lord Randolph
Churchill, who had lately been an undergraduate
of my own College, was already canvassing vigor-
ously, and I repeated my experiences of 1868 in
addressing village meetings and making house-to-

ELECTION CONTESTS 153

house visits, so far as time allowed. Strange to say,
Lord Randolph adopted very different tactics, relying
almost entirely on personal influence, and holding
only one really open meeting, on the advice of a
political friend, where he spoke with very little
effect. The result, however, justified his policy, as
well as my own misgivings — for I was under no
illusions about the altered tone of the constituency.
The fact is that I had pledged myself to stand
against my own judgment, well knowing that a
son of the Duke would be a more formidable candi-
date than Mr. Barnett, that a turn had taken place
in the political tide, and that I was sure to suffer
from the inevitable disappointment of hopes rashly
held out by my supporters in 1868. In the mean-
time, the Agricultural Labourers' Union had been
founded, and was supposed to be very strong in
the Woodstock district. Its leaders adopted my
candidature, though I warned my audiences against
some of their chimerical views in almost every speech,
but I am satisfied that I lost far more than I gained
by their adhesion. I doubt whether any one voted
for me who would not have done so if there had
been no Union, whereas it is certain that many
farmers, small tradespeople, and non-Unionist
labourers, were estranged from the Liberal cause
by hostility to Joseph Arch and his associates.
Dissensions, too, had sprung up in the Libera]
camp, and I am under a strong impression that,
under cover of the ballot, many old scores between
neighbours were paid off at my expense. At all

154 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

events, I was defeated by the comparatively large
majority of about i6o, and finally severed my
personal connection with the borough of Woodstock.
I took the chair, however, at public meetings on
two later occasions. The one was held, in anticipa-
tion of a casual vacancy, to bring forward the ex-
member. Lord Alfred Churchill, against his nephew,
Lord Randolph. The other was to celebrate the
return of Mr. F. Maclean for Mid-Oxfordshire, after
the absorption of Woodstock into that County
division. At this meeting, held on February 3,
1886, I expressed the firm conviction "that, quite
apart from English interests, no measure could be
devised so fatal to Ireland as Home Rule, and that,
if it were granted at the dictation of the conspiracy
which now dominated Ireland and demoralised the
House of Commons, the next generation of Irishmen
would rise up and curse us — and with much better
reason than ever before." These sentiments were
heartily applauded, and I remember that nothing
was so loudly cheered as denunciations of the
Conservative Party for coquetting with the Home
Rulers. Within a few months, the leading promoters
of the meeting, who had stood by me so faithfully
in two contests, and seemed to remain as staunch
Unionists as the rest of the Liberal Party, were
eagerly supporting "the great betrayal," and
efi"ectually urging the County Liberal Association
to make Home Rule the chief plank of its platform,
in spite, too, of a very earnest appeal from myself.
This prompt and blind adhesion of nearly all the

ELECTION CONTESTS 155

Liberal caucuses to Mr. Gladstone's new Irish policy,
even though condemned, for instance, by Mr.
Chamberlain, has always appeared to me the most
remarkable feature of that great crisis. As I said
in a speech delivered soon afterwards, when the
Liberal host broke up into two armies, Mr. Glad-
stone contrived to carry oflf all the regimental colours
and all the regimental bands. Wherever the colours
were seen flying bravely, and the bands heard play-
ing lustily, most of the rank and file supposed the
head-quarters of the regiment must needs be there
planted, rallied under such officers as they found
there, and asked no further questions.

Having mentioned Lord Kandolph Churchill,
whom I never met again until long afterwards, I
may add that he was twice my guest at Merton
in later years — once when he came to speak at the
Union on the Irish Question, and once when he
attended a College dinner shortly before the sad
close of his meteoric career. His speech at the Union
was sound and sensible rather than brilliant ; that
at Merton was a failure, owing to an evident decay
of his powers. On both occasions he was perfectly
friendly and natural with me, talking over old times
and present times without reserve, revisiting his
former haunts, and pleasing young and old, College
servants not less than Fellows or undergraduates,
by his simple and affable manner. Nevertheless,
I well knew that he had that in him which in a
horse would be " vice," and I have never ceased to
hold that his signal political fall, preceding his

156 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

almost tragical death, was a salutary lesson in
political morality for the rising generation. My
estimate of his public character is briefly expressed
in the following passage from an obituary article
which I contributed to the Oxford Magazine : —

" The secret of his marvellous, though transitory, success
is even now somewhat difficult to analyse. He was favoured,
of course, by his social position, but he never possessed
a robust physique, and he was not endowed with the flash-
ing eye, or the ringing voice, or the instinctive sympathy
of a true-born orator. On the other hand, he was gifted,
in a very high degree, with intellectual intrepidity and
presence of mind. The peculiar courage of experience
recognised by Aristotle — the courage which quails not
before dangers which it has often faced with impunity —
came to Lord Eandolph Churchill without experience, and
was sedulously cultivated by him as a political resource of
the greatest value. His audacity was perfectly natural;
it showed itself in season and out of season, both at School
and at College ; it was restrained by few scruples, and by
little respect for others. But there can be no doubt that
it was deliberately and skilfully employed to break down
what has been called the Gladstonian legend, as well as —
with less excuse^ — to humiliate and undermine his own
political leaders. Probably the world has given him undue
credit for original genius ; at all events, his originality was
of temperament rather than of intellect. There is no proof
that he was a man of mental grasp above that of his fellows,
while he excelled them all in a mutinous independence
of thought and expression which rebelled against all con-
ventions, and impelled him to exert the madman's strength
in political conflict. But he added to his audacity and
independence a truly admirable industry, little suspected
in the earlier stages of his career. It was this that fairly
won him the confidence of permanent officials both at
the India Office and at the Treasury ; it was this, coupled

ELECTION CONTESTS 157

with a newly-developed tact and self-restraint, that en-
abled him to lead the House of Commons, and command
loyal support from his party. He was no impostor or
hypocrite, and would frankly discuss his own political errors,
including the fact that he had quite forgotten the existence
of Mr. Goschen, when he petulantly threw up the Chancel-
lorship of the Exchequer. In fact, his strength as well
as his weakness largely consisted in his combination of two
natures, both equally genuine — the one prompting to an
almost shameless and aggressive self-assertion, the other tem-
pered by kindliness, pubUc spirit, and patriotism. Which-
ever of these two natures predominated for the moment,
he never ceased to be true to himself, and, if he could have
written his own obituary memoir, he would assuredly have
admitted that his fall, no less than his rise, was due to his
indomitable self-will. If he survived an almost unique
popularity, he also survived the enmities that attended it,
and after his death all men spoke gently of his memory.
Few have ever enjoyed " one crowded hour of glorious life "
more fully than he did ; fewer still have atoned for a too
reckless enjoyment of it by a swifter Nemesis of political
failure and premature decay."

When the General Election of 1880 was known
to be impending, I had but just returned from a visit
to Lord Spencer at Algiers, and had no constituency
specially in view. Several overtures reached me
from counties in search of candidates, but I declined
them as too speculative, until I received an invita-
tion to stand for Monmouthshire (then undivided),
in conjunction with Mr. C. M. Warmington, Q.C.
The representation of that county had been in the
undisputed possession of the Conservatives for many
years, and I dare say that our chances of success
there appeared to most of my friends worse than

158 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

some which I had just rejected. But facts were laid
before us which convinced Mr. Warmington and my-
self that one seat, at least, ought to be won, and,
after some hesitation, we undertook to fight. The
question of expense was still a serious one, as no
limitation was imposed by law, and ;^ 10,000 was no
excessive estimate for a county election ; but my col-
league guaranteed a moderate sum, and the generosity
of two or three old friends emboldened me to become
responsible for the rest, whatever it might be. In
the end, the entire cost on our side amounted to
some ;!f3300 or ;^3400, being very much less than
was shown by the election accounts of our opponents.
Colonel Morgan and Mr. J. Rolls, now Lord Llan-
gattock. On our arrival at Newport, the real capital
of Monmouthshire, we narrowly escaped becoming
the laughing-stock of the inhabitants through one of
those comical incidents which seem to beset elec-
tioneering. A carriage and pair had been ordered to
meet us, but the driver, being drunk, had put his
horses into a hearse, and, unless opportunely stopped,
would have come to welcome the Liberal candidates
at the station in that funereal vehicle. We soon found
that we had a most arduous struggle before us, espe-
cially as we had little support from so-called Liberals
of position in the county, one of whom had been
a party to our candidature, but saw fit to back out
when fighting began. There was practically no
organisation until Mr. Warmington brought down a
London solicitor, who happened to be a friend of his
own, and co-operated efl&ciently with my agent, Mr.

ELECTION CONTESTS 159

Graham, whose guest I was. I was myself in very
delicate health, chiefly due to persistent insomnia
(for which I took a strong dose of chloral every night
with perfect impunity), and I had been assured that
I should not be required to speak at more than one
meeting a day. Of course, the absurdity of any such
restriction became manifest at once ; we often had to
address three meetings in the day, once four, and
once five, having driven fifty or sixty miles with four
horses. The whole contest occupied little more than
a fortnight, and as we seldom appeared twice at the
same place, it was necessary for us to set forth our
whole creed at some length at each meeting. It is
not easy to do this without a good deal of repetition,
and, as we were dogged by reporters, the efibrt to
avoid repetition was always trying, and not always
successful. Since Gladstone was nominally in retire-
ment, and I hoped that he would remain so, I seldom
mentioned his name, and studiously abstained from
endorsing his passionate and one-sided views on the
Eastern Question. The question of the Welsh Church
had not yet been practically raised, and it was a
tacit order of the day that neither Warmington nor
I should be pressed to commit ourselves upon it.
The exigencies of time often prevented our figuring
together on the same platform. Two meetings would
be advertised for the same hour at places (such as
Khymney and Tredegar) several miles apart, and
separated by a range of hills. He would open one
meeting while I opened the other, after which each
of us drove at full speed across the hills to speak at

i6o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the second meeting, which had been kept going in
the meantime by local politicians. Our main strength
lay in what is now West Monmouthshire, and is
represented by Sir W. Harcourt, where most of the
population were Eadicals, Nonconformists, miners,
and AVelsh-speaking. They gave us most enthusiastic
receptions, and our colours reddened the hillsides, so
that it became the fashion to say (in reference to our
opponents' colours) that we had seen " nothing blue
but the sky." Unhappily for us, however, few of
those who shouted had votes, before household suf-
frage was extended to counties. In the South-East
district of the county, Conservative influence largely
preponderated among English-speaking farmers and
tradespeople, the principal industry being agriculture,
and the Established Church much stronger. The
Northern region about Abergavenny held an inter-
mediate position, in these respects, between the other
two, and was supposed to be equally divided in
political sympathies, but it disappointed our hopes.
When the poll was declared at Monmouth, it was
found that 3529 votes had been given for Colonel
Morgan, 3294 for Mr. EoUs, 3019 for myself, and
2927 for Mr Warmington.

I at once accepted this defeat as final, and, being
already near my fiftieth year, I abandoned definitely
the idea of seeking a seat in Parliament. I had long
realised that a man entering the House of Commons
in middle life, without a great extra-Parliamentary
reputation and the hope of a respectful welcome, must
compete at a great disadvantage with younger men.

ELECTION CONTESTS i6i

His successes, if any, excite less interest, his failures
receive no allowance, his stock of hopefulness and
self-confidence is much smaller, and, if he should
earn an influential position after all, it is too late for
him to make full use of it. Nor have I ever been
able to understand why any man should covet the
position of a cipher in the House of Commons, scorn-
ing delights and living laborious days, unless he has
social or commercial objects to serve by acquiring the
title of M.P. For these reasons, I bade adieu to
active politics, not without a sense of having received
little encouragement from the leaders of my Party,
but without any foresight of the more than suicidal
policy which a few years later was to shatter that
Party, and drive its leaders into opposite camps.

CHAPTER IX

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS

Waste of power on Commissions — Commission on treatment of
Fenian prisoners — O'Donovan Rossa — Demeanour of Fenians —
Oxford University Commission — Its results — London University
Commission.

It has been said that most Englishmen not devoted
to mere pleasure heartily enjoy serving on Com-
mittees, and assuredly the vast amount of unpaid
service rendered on public bodies, from the House
of Commons and the great Metropolitan Boards to
Parish Councils and Vestries, is a fact that reflects
honour on our national character. Personally, I
have never felt attracted to such work, chiefly be-
cause, useful as it is in the aggregate, it is generally
carried on with an enormous waste of time and
energy. This evil is sure to be aggravated if the
Committee or Commission is formed, as it so often
is, on a representative basis, so that its members
are divided ab initio into two hostile sections. No
better illustration of such tendencies could be given
than may be found in the abortive results of the
great Licensing Commission. But many Commis-
sions, as well as many Boards, are crippled by their
mere size. If Companies were managed by half the
number of Directors (none of them ornamental), the

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS 163

saving in salaries would be great, fewer scandals
would arise, and I firmly believe that the business
would be more efiiciently conducted. The same
principle applies, in my judgment, to Governing
Bodies of Public Schools, and to almost all the
Commissions or Committees of which I have been
a member. A large Commission means slack and
fluctuating attendance, especially if it includes, as it
so often does, one or two of the most eminent and
therefore busiest men in the country. Questions
decided at one meeting are re-opened at the next by
some member who never heard the original discus-
sion ; the difficulty of obtaining a general agreement
is greatly increased, and no one feels as much sense
of responsibility as if he shared it with three or four
colleagues.

However, my own experience of service on Com-
missions or other public bodies has been limited, and
not specially unfavourable. It began with the Home
Office Commission, appointed in 1870 by Mr. Glad-
stone's Ministry, to inquire into the alleged maltreat-
ment of Fenian prisoners in English convict-prisons.
The most extravagant and mendacious statements
had been circulated on this subject, and repeated in
the House of Commons, just as has been done on
several later occasions, until at last Mr. Gladstone
promised an independent inquisition. I thought this
an act of weakness, as the Home Office could easily
have investigated the case for itself ; but I was ad-
vised that, as there was to be a Commission, I might
be of some public use by serving on it. It was con-

164 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

stituted on somewhat peculiar lines. Lord Devon,
an excellent Irish landlord, and a man respected by
all, was appointed Chairman ; Sir Stephen de Vere,
an Irish Roman Catholic gentleman, was associated
with myself as an unprofessional and unpaid Com-
missioner ; while the professional element in both
countries was represented by Dr. Greenhow, a London
physician, and Dr. Lyons, a Dublin physician, being
also a Roman Catholic. Both of these were paid
Commissioners, and contributed the medical know-
ledge essential to some parts of our inquiry.

The form of the Commission was in itself a con-
clusive proof of the view taken by the Government
of that day with respect to the proper treatment of
political prisoners. We were instructed to inquire,
not whether the governors and other officials of
English convict-prisons had been guilty of con-
founding the Fenian prisoners with ordinary convicts,
but, on the contrary, "whether the treason-felony
prisoners have been subjected to any exceptional
treatment in any way, or have suffered any hardships
beyond those incident to the condition of a prisoner
sentenced to penal servitude." In other words, it
was assumed that a political convict, as such, had no
claim to exceptional privileges or indulgence ; the
only question being whether, as alleged, the Fenians,
as such, had been singled out in English convict-
prisons for exceptional severities and indignities.

It is needless to state (but with one reservation)
that all these allegations, published quite as con-
fidently and recklessly as those more recently fabri-

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS 165

cated, utterly broke down on examination. We
reported unanimously that, " after a patient and
minute investigation, we do not find any ground for
the belief that the treason-felony prisoners in English
convict-prisons have, as a class, been subjected to
any exceptionally severe treatment, or have suffered
any hardships beyond those incident to the condition
of a prisoner sentenced to penal servitude." It
appeared, on the contrary, that, in individual cases,
governors or directors of convict-prisons had sanc-
tioned certain mitigations of prison discipline in
their favour, where health or special circumstances
might justify such leniency. For instance, every
well-conducted prisoner under sentence of penal ser-
vitude is entitled to occasional visits from relations ;
but as the Fenian prisoners, being Irish, were less
accessible to relations in English convict-prisons, they
were allowed greater latitude in letter-writing than
would otherwise have been permitted. It is right to
state, however, that in the single case of O'Donovan
Rossa, a charge of arbitrary treatment made in the
House of Commons, and denied by the Home Office,
was fully proved by evidence laid before us. Having
been a most refractory prisoner, by his own admis-
sion, O'Donovan Rossa had been guilty of a gross
outrage, for which, if he had not been a Fenian, he
would assuredly have been flogged. As it was, he
was handcuffed for thirty-five days, except during
meals, and at night — a punishment not sanctioned
by prison law, and only explained (for it could not
be excused) by the sudden departure of the Governor

1 66 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

on leave, and gross, if not wilful neglect on the part
of his subordinates. Happily, not long afterwards,
O'Donovan Rossa, having got into trouble again,
came before Sir E. Ducane, then Chief Director of
Convict Prisons, who made a timely appeal to his
good sense, and remitted the penalty, with the result
that his prison character became excellent, and re-
mained so for two or three years before our visit to
Chatham. He certainly impressed us all favourably
by his manly bearing ; and, after his release, I received
a letter from him which did credit to his better feel-
ings. It would be well if this revival of them had
proved lasting.

We visited Millbank and Pentonville, the two pre-
paratory convict-prisons, Chatham, Woking, Portland,
and Dartmoor, but not Portsmouth, where no Fenian
convict happened to be confined. Our practice was
to give about three days' notice of our coming to
each prison, during which the Fenian prisoners were
allowed writing materials to draw up any state-
ments of complaint, but were supposed to be care-
fully separated from each other, lest they should
concoct a story together. This precaution was effec-
tually frustrated in cases where Sunday happened
to intervene, for my Roman Catholic colleagues, sup-
ported by Lord Devon, would not hear of Catholic
prisoners being kept away from mass in the chapel,
where the facilities are great for the secret tele-
graphy which is an occult science of jails. The
result was a highly suspicious family likeness be-
tween the papers handed in to us in prisons where

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS 167

such communication had been possible. Some two-
thirds of the prisoners, however, doubtless acting in
concert, utterly declined to make any complaint
whatever, or to have anything to do with us,
sometimes adding expressions of contempt for the
Government which had commissioned us. One of
these was M'Caflferty, the chosen leader of the pro-
jected attack on Chester Castle, which had been
far better organised than is generally supposed, and
was almost as near succeeding as the G-unpowder
Plot. Another was Eickard Burke, for the purpose
of rescuing whom the wall of Clerkenwell prison was
blown up. This man had long been under medical
supervision, and was suspected by the prison author-
ities of feigning madness, like King David. Perhaps
it may have been so, but I am by no means sure
that, by dint of shamming, he did not work his
excitable temperament into a state of real, if tem-
porary, madness. At all events, during our first
interview with him in the prison infirmary, he was
so furious in manner and incoherent in speech that
we could make nothing of him. A few weeks later,
being rather quieter, he came before us ; but the
prison authorities suggested to us that it might be
well for Thomas Bourke, a fellow-prisoner who had
much influence with him, to be present during his
examination. Now, Thomas Bourke, who had been
condemned to death for high treason but spared
by the clemency of Lord Mayo, was one of those
prisoners who absolutely declined to make any
statement on their own behalf Still, he willingly

1 68 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

accompanied Eickard Burke, on whose appearance
our table was cleared of everything that could serve
as a missile, and he intervened more than once to
calm down the ebullitions of his namesake. We found
it impossible, however, to get any intelligible answer
to our questions, and at last abandoned the attempt
as hopeless. Other prisoners dwelt querulously on
the petty discomforts of prison life as serious griev-
ances, but made it clear that their one real grievance
was their being consigned to prison at all. Several
of them managed to show a familiar acquaintance
with Mr. Gladstone's letters on Neapolitan prisons,
which they indignantly contrasted with his treat-
ment of Irish patriots. Whatever may have been
the quality of their patriotism, it certainly enabled
most of them to assume a certain air of dignity, not
unmingled with insolence, but very different from
the bearing of ordinary criminals.

Before our report appeared, all of them were
released, on condition of leaving the country ; and,
though O'Donovan Rossa, if not others, revisited it, I
am not aware that any of them but he has since been
among the prominent organisers of crime in Ireland.
The mischief done by their release consisted in its
discouraging effect on Irish juries disposed, at some
personal risk, to return honest verdicts. Of course,
after this decision of the Government, few cared to
read the report, which I cannot say that I regretted,
for, while it truly stated the results of our inquiry,
its hesitating and guarded tone was only too signifi-
cant of a compromise between two principles.

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS 169

My next experience of service on Commissions
was in 1877, when the Conservative Government,
at the instance of Lord Salisbury, carried a fresh
measure of Academical reform, under which a body
i)f executive Commissioners, with Lord Selborne for
its chairman, was empowered to remodel once more
the University and Colleges of Oxford. I have always
regarded this measure as ill considered, founded
on one-sided statements of Oxford opinion, and pro-
ductive, on the whole, of more harm than good. Its
leading principle was essentially socialistic — the spolia-
tion of the Colleges, as rich corporations, for the sup-
posed benefit of the University, as a comparatively
poor corporation. Its main effect has been a large
reduction in the number of Fellowships, the reward
of the ablest and most industrious students, with a
corresponding increase in the number of well-endowed
Professorships, not so much in the interest of edu-
cation as in that of " research." Whether this enor-
mous diversion of revenues has been justified by the
results is more than doubtful ; what is certain is that,
accompanied by other changes, such as the sweeping
abolition of restrictions on marriage among Fellows,
it has grievously weakened the College system. On
the other hand, no attempt was made to reorganise
the University system of teaching on a symmetrical
plan, or even upon one capable of being worked in
harmony with College tuition. The dualism of these
rival systems was perpetuated, and the educational
life of the University continued to be centred, as
before, in the Colleges, except so far as regards

lyo MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Natural Science, for instruction in whieli the Museum
supplies the necessary laboratories and collections in
close proximity to the lecture-rooms. A new order
of University Eeaders was created, but their salaries
have mainly served to augment the stipends of
successful College tutors, whose lectures were already
open ; and, since attendance at University lectures
was not made compulsory, it has been found easier
to endow Professors and Eeaders out of College
revenues than to provide them with audiences at
the expense of College lecturers. Nevertheless, the
Commission did good service in abolishing most of
the clerical restrictions left by its predecessor, thus
carrying out the policy of the University Test Act,
passed in 1871, of which I had been a very active
promoter. It also established a general, and, on the
whole, salutary uniformity in the tenure of College
Scholarships and Fellowships, though it would perhaps
be too much to expect that " Prize Fellows," as they
are ungracefully called, elected for seven years only,
should cherish the same feeling of College loyalty as
Fellows elected for life — but on condition of celibacy.
As I was one of those who foresaw the doubtful
result of this Commission, I am glad to reflect that I
was in no way responsible for it. Indeed, I was one
of the Commissioners only for the purpose of revising
the Statutes of Merton, by virtue of a clause in the
Act which empowered each College to appoint three
of its members to act on the Commission ad hoc,
when its own turn came to be remodelled. We had
no special reason to complain of the mode in which

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS 171

they dealt with us, but their general policy in deal-
ing with Colleges was open to at least two grave
objections. The first was that, instead of proceeding
on well-considered lines applicable to all, they made
a separate bargain with each ; the other was that,
legislating during a "boom" of agricultural prosperity,
and assuming that it would continue, they enormously
overestimated the average rentals of Colleges, and
imposed on them contributions quite out of propor-
tion to their present revenues. It is to be feared
that any future Commission, issued under democratic
pressure, is likely to aggravate rather than to correct
the mistakes of the last. The real and manifest
shortcomings of the University will probably remain
untouched — the want of any matriculation examina-
tion, the inordinate length of Vacations, the licensed
idleness of passmen, the absurd complexity and still
more absurd instability of the examination system.
But the revenues of the Colleges, now the life-blood
of the University, are sure to be attacked again, and
it will be fortunate if, instead of being re-appropriated
to education and learning within the University
itself, they are not confiscated to subsidise provincial
centres of teaching.

Some years later, I was appointed to serve on a
Koyal Commission for inquiring into the best mode
of organising a Teaching University in London, of
which Commission Lord Selborne was chairman.
After a few sittings, I felt it right to retire from it
upon grounds which may be worth stating, inasmuch
as they apply to the action of many similar Com-

172 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

missions. In my opinion, a Eoyal Commission should
retain absolute control over the reception of evidence,
selecting expert witnesses at its own discretion,
inviting representative witnesses from bodies inter-
ested in the subject of inquiry, receiving offers from
individuals desirous of being examined, but exercis-
ing a strict discrimination in the acceptance of such
offers, and rigorously limiting both the scope and
the duration of the proceedings. Unhappily, the
contrary policy too often prevails, the consequence
being that inquiries which might be completed in a
few months are too often protracted over years,
resulting in a halting report, with one or two
memorandums of dissent, followed by piles of evi-
dence so voluminous that hardly any one reads them,
and published so late as to be almost obsolete for
purposes of legislation. The amount of power wasted
in futile Commissions, and the mass of valuable
materials buried away in blue-books, would appear
incredible if it were estimated, and constitutes an
abuse which ought to be remedied. For some years
past the British public has been justly shocked by
the irrelevance and prolixity of the various proceed-
ings arising out of the famous " Dreyfus Case." But
the needless delay, though not the scandal, was
scarcely less in the Venezuela Arbitration, where
the Attorney-General was engaged for many weeks
together in stating or combating, and two eminent
Judges in solemnly hearing, elaborate arguments,
the whole of which had been, or might have been,
embodied in printed documents. Finding the London

SERVICE ON COMMISSIONS 173

University Commission disposed to adopt a like
course by welcoming evidence from all comers, and
having failed to carry a motion in a contrary sense,
I declined to be responsible for the sacrifice of time
which I thought would ensue. In the end, this
proved less than I had anticipated ; but the re-
commendations of the Commission did not meet with
general acceptance. Another was soon afterwards
appointed, and, after infinite debates and negotia-
tions, a third Commission with executive powers is
at last engaged in framing a working scheme on
the inevitable basis of a compromise. Upon the
merits of this compromise, and still more upon those
of the controversy to be settled by it, I desire to
express no opinion. I must say, however, that the
alleged grievance of Londoners, in respect of Univer-
sity education, never seemed to me a very substantial
one. London students, unable or unwilling to avail
themselves of Oxford or Cambridge, have long had
excellent lectures and tuition provided for them at
University and King's Colleges, not to speak of
others. Those who aspired to degrees could obtain
them at the London University, after examinations
which had the great merit of being conducted by
independent examiners, and which, so far as I know,
satisfied both the students and the public. The
grievance, in short, was not so much a students'
grievance or a public grievance as a professorial
grievance, and, though it may be well to bring
lectures and examinations into closer harmony with
each other, I shall regard it as a retrograde step if

174 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

lecturers are allowed to dominate over examiners.
The example of the older Universities, cited in favour
of making lecturers examiners, should rather have
been cited as a warning against it. The only good
reason why College tutors are so often appointed to
examine, is that it is very difficult, especially at
Oxford, to find equally capable outsiders who have
kept pace with the progress of knowledge in all
the subjects of examination. But it is a weakness,
if a necessary weakness, of the Oxford system, that
so many tutors should have a voice in what Lord
Derby called " branding their own herrings." It
is partly corrected by an occasional infusion of
examiners from Cambridge, and it is creditable to
Oxford that it seldom involves any gross abuses.

CHAPTER X

FAMILY EVENTS, 1854-1893

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON, 1873-1880

IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON SOCIETY

Family events — My father's later career and death — Life in London —
Literary work — London School Board — Eoyal Geographical Society
— Geographical Club — Sir Henry Rawlinson — Joseph Arch — My
Essays published by the Cobden Club — "ifinglish Land and
English Landlords " — Further overtures from constituencies — Im-
pressions of London society — Recent changes in moral sentiments,
manners, and fashions.

Family events have little or no interest for the
public, and if I now pause to mention a very few
of those which affected my own life, it is because
" Memories and Impressions " would be somewhat
incomplete without such landmarks. In 1854, just
when I was taking my B.A. degree at Oxford, my
father thought it right to resign the Eectory of Bath,
finding himself unable to maintain his former standard
of work, and being unwilling to see any decline of
efficiency under his own incumbency. After spending
the "Crimean winter" in a house near Maidenhead,
he was appointed in 1855 to a Canonry of Wells, an
ideal Cathedral-town, surrounded by a beautiful
country and full of antiquarian interest, which I
was then unable to appreciate as I now do. But for

176 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the smallness of its scale, Wells Cathedral, with its
Vicar's Close, Bishop's Palace, and other ancient
houses, would deserve to rank with the grandest
Cathedrals of the Eastern Counties. One of my
father's brother- Canons, the Rev. F. Beadon, attained
the patriarchal age of nearly 102, and I retain a
letter of his to myself, in a clear handwriting and
very lively tone, written after he reached his
hundredth year. In 1861 my father was promoted
to the Deanery of Exeter, and succeeded his eldest
brother as Viscount Midleton in 1863. During his
residence at Exeter, Bishop Philpotts, once so active,
had delegated most of his episcopal duties to other
hands, and lived in seclusion near Torquay, leaving
the Palace empty, so that most of the ecclesiastical
hospitality naturally fell upon the Dean. I was too
much engrossed by journalism to be often at Exeter,
and preferred to spend my short holidays at Peper
Harow, our family -place in Surrey. It was now that
I began to explore the county on horseback, and
learned to admire its beauties, when its " residential "
value had not yet been advertised, and it was still
little spoiled by villas. In 1866, when the cholera
raged in the East of London, we had a startling little
outbreak at Peper Harow, which might have been
worth recording as throwing some light on the
method of its propagation. A man and his wife
came down with one child from a cholera-stricken
district, and were lodged in the cottage of some
near relations. The child was suflfering from symp-
toms which, being neglected, soon developed into

FAMILY EVENTS 177

cholera, and within less than twenty-four hours
two grown persons, besides the child, died in that
cottage ; while another, a young boy, was only saved
by the devoted care of our clergyman's daughter,
who played the part of doctor and nurse when hardly
any one would go near the premises. In this case I
have no doubt that germs of cholera were quickened
into virulent activity by the local circumstances of
the cottage, beyond which the disease never spread.

In 1867 my father decided on resigning the
Deanery of Exeter. Several of his family would
have dissuaded him from doing so, but, in spite of
legal advice to the contrary, he felt himself bound to
keep the full eight months' residence, so long as he
remained Dean, without deduction for attendance in
Parliament, and this, for private reasons, he did not
see his way to undertake. Thenceforward his time
was divided between London and Peper Harow,
where Lord Cardwell was our nearest neighbour.
There he died, on August 29, 1870, after some
months' illness, leaving us the example of a perfectly
blameless life, of a truly Evangelical piety, and of a
self-respecting dignity peculiarly his own, which no
shock or provocation could disturb. My mother
survived him by twenty -three years, dying on August
13, 1893, at Richmond, where she had resided, with
my only sister, for some twelve years. When I am
tempted to repine inwardly at the many trials and
disappointments of my own lifetime, I sometimes
remind myself that it is no light thing, but a blessing
shared by few, to be the child of such parents, born

M

178 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

in the most enviable class of English society, and
educated in those simple principles of Christian faith
which, once imbibed, permanently transform a man's
whole ideal of human life. On my father's death, my
brother, the present Viscount Midleton, succeeded to
his title, having represented Mid-Surrey for two
Sessions only in the House of Commons. Peper
Harow now ceased to be " the parent nest " for me,
though it has continued to be a second home ever
since, and I have lived to see it peopled first by
nephews and nieces and latterly by their children.
My father, being the youngest, was also the last of
his own family, none of whom attained remarkable
longevity. It was otherwise with my mother's
family. Sydney Smith used to say that every one
has aunts at Bath, and three sisters of my mother
lived there between fifty and sixty years, the fourth
having died prematurely during an attack of which
the gravity was not suspected. The eldest of these
aunts had just passed her ninety-fourth birthday at
her death in 1893, ^^^ ^^^ average age reached by
her and three sisters (including my mother) was
above eighty-eight, which is the more remarkable as
all were frail in appearance, and two had been
extremely delicate from girlhood. It may be added
that none were total abstainers, but all were ab-
stemious in diet. The youngest of them, who died
on December 31, 1895, was the last survivor of what
to me is the older generation; and the fact that
all this is in the order of nature does not reconcile
me, or any one else, to the gradual loss of " the old

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 179

familiar faces " of those who called us by our Christian
names, and watched our lives from childhood upwards.
Being one of my youngest aunt's executors, I arranged
that all letters addressed to her should be forwarded
to me from the Bath Post Office. A large proportion
of them were begging letters, and such are the
demands on the charity of benevolent old ladies
supposed to be wealthy, that I received hundreds of
such letters within two years of her death, which her
correspondents had not discovered.

The six years between the General Election of 1 874
and that of 1 880 were a comparatively blank period in
my life. I was living chiefly in my rooms at 3 2 a Mount
Street, which I occupied for thirty-six years continu-
ously, and from which I was only dislodged in 1893
by the Duke of Westminster's improvements. Almost
every day I rode in Eotten Row, or made a longer
round on the North-West or South of London,
through regions which have now been transformed,
and practically closed against riders, by the constant
progress of building. Rotten Row had then been
extended as far as Queen's Gate, between the Prince
Consort's Memorial and Kensington Gardens. Here
I witnessed the narrow escape of the Prince of Wales,
when he was ridden down by a gentleman on a run-
away horse, and apparently much injured by his own
horse rolling over him. I was near enough to jump
off" my horse, which I left standing, and ran forward
to his assistance, but heard from one of his equerries
that he was almost unhurt, and he soon afterwards
rode home in good spirits. As hardly any one else

i8o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

could have seen this incident, which might well have
proved fatal, I wrote a short anonymous paragraph
in the Times, which I believe to be the only record of
it. Several people who had read this paragraph,
hearing that I had been an eye-witness, were anxious
to know whether it was a truthful description of the
adventure. I always replied that I thought it re-
markable for its accuracy, and that, had I written it
myself, I should have told the story in much the
same way. And here I may remark that I have never
found it very difficult to parry questions about anony-
mous articles without resorting to falsehood. No
doubt direct lying is the most effectual form of dis-
avowal, but, in addition to its moral turpitude, it has
the disadvantage that, if you are found out, no one
trusts you afterwards.

Since I ceased to be a journalist in 1873,
I think I have written only three anonymous
articles, but several pamphlets or essays of mine
appeared during the next few years, and I was busily
employed during most of 1880 on my " English Land
and English Landlords." I have already spoken
of my pamphlet issued in 1874, ^^^^ entitled "Five
Years of Liberal Policy and Conservative Opposition."
This was followed in 1875 by another pamphlet
entitled "What are Liberal Principles?" being an
attempt to give professed (but sometimes ill-informed)
Liberals solid reasons for their political faith, and to
disengage the mere temporary watchwords of the
Party from the fundamental elements of its creed.
If I were now to revise it, I hope I should find little

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON i8i

to alter, so far as regards my own convictions, but I
fear I should have to admit that opportunism and
popularity-hunting count for more, and adherence
to fixed principles for less, than I then supposed, in
the counsels of the so-called Liberal Party. In 1878,
after reading an article by Mr. Goldwin Smith on
" Whigs and Liberals," I was moved to write a reply
in the Fortnightly Review, which I entitled " Liberals
and Whigs." In this article I claimed for the Whigs
the essential capacity of leadership, and endeavoured
to show how far the Liberal Party would have been
led astray by its Left Wing had there been no Left
Centre to guide it. In 1879, when the "caucus
system " had been lately organised, and threatened
to usurp functions properly belonging to the recog-
nised leaders of the Liberal Party, I contributed
three letters (since republished) to the Manchester
Examiner and Times on the subject of " Liberal
Organisation." My object was, first, to show the use
and abuse of the caucus system as an organ for the
concentration and expression of Liberal opinion in
constituencies ; secondly, to protest against the
creation of an intermediate power between Liberal
constituencies and Parliament itself, under the
name of a " Federal Council of Liberal Associa-
tions."

Among my contributions to educational literature
were an article on " The Universities and the Nation "
inthe Contemporary Review oiSxme 1875; a carefully-
written paper on "The Influence of the Older Eng-
lish Universities on National Education," read at the

I«2

MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Social Science Congress, Brighton, in October 1875 ;
and a Presidential address on Education, delivered
before the Education section of that Congress, at
Cheltenham, in October 1878. I also addressed to
the Times, in 1876, three letters on the Fellowship
system, against which a crusade had been proclaimed
by the apostles " of mature study and original
research." I have always believed that, in comply-
ing with their demand for a second Commission, Lord
Salisbury was no less actuated by a desire to prevent
the government of Colleges from passing into the
hands of young Radicals, than by a genuine zeal for
the benefit of science. At all events, the endow-
ment of new Professorships, mainly scientific, was to
be procured by an unsparing suppression of open
Fellowships, which I regarded as the mainspring of
Academical industry. Many of the arguments which
I then used still appear to me sound, and many of
the consequences which I foresaw have actually taken
eflfect. But experience has not altogether justified
my expectation that a dearth of open Fellowships
would largely diminish the influx of able young men
into the University. That it would do so, if Cam-
bridge were not equally handicapped, seems to me
self-evident ; nor can I doubt that some clever youths
have been diverted from a University career into
business, since the chances of getting a Fellowship
have been lessened, and that still more are deterred
by the same cause from staying up to read after
taking their degrees. But I gladly admit that
Scholarships, without much prospect of a Fellowship,

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 183

still attract a goodly number of promising young
scholars to Oxford.

In the meantime, I filled various educational
offices of more or less importance. For several years
I served on the Council of the London Society for
the Promotion of University Teaching, and also acted
as a nominated Governor of Dulwich College, under
the genial chairmanship of the Rev. W. Rogers,
Rector of Bishopsgate, known to his friends as "Billy
Rogers," many of whose homely sayings have become
current, and contain a quaint mixture of wit and
wisdom. I often rode down to our meetings, then
held at Dulwich, by a route no longer practicable.
In 1877, when I had barely recovered from a concus-
sion of the brain due to a fall in riding, I was elected
by the London School Board to fill the first death
vacancy that had occurred since its foundation. 1
sat with Mr. Sydney Buxton and three other col-
leagues for the Westminster Division, and took a fair
share, though not a leading part, in the business of
the Board. There was then no burning question to
create sharp party divisions, for that of religious
instruction was supposed to have been settled by
a judicious compromise, and had not been unwisely
reopened. Still, there was the irrepressible antagon-
ism between the forward " School Board policy" and
that of friendly co-operation with Voluntary Schools,
between the advocates of economy and the advocates
of liberal expenditure on school buildings, and still
more on teachers' salaries. In these controversies I
steered a middle course, weighing the arguments

1 84 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

used in debate by more experienced members, and
often suspending my judgment until just before my
vote was given. My sympathies had been previously
in favour of Board Schools, as destined not so much
to supplement as gradually to supersede Voluntary
Schools, but I saw reason to modify this prefer-
ence. Not that I ever observed any tendency in
Board Schools to disparage religious teaching ; on
the contrary, I used to say that if an inspector could
be taken blindfold into a number of Board Schools
and Church Schools, chosen at random, during the
hour of religious teaching, he would not be able to
distinguish between them, unless the Church Cate-
chism happened to be the lesson of the hour. More-
over, I was favourably impressed by the sincere
desire of the Board to get the best managers for its
own schools, including, if possible, the rector or vicar
of the parish. But I soon learned how difficult
it was for Board Schools to equal Church Schools in
the personal zeal of their managers, and I never could
justify the deliberate policy of raising teachers'
salaries in Board Schools far above the market price,
as if for the purpose of outbidding their rivals — not
aided by the rates.

One of the least pleasant, bub most useful, duties
which I had to perform, was sitting in judgment on
parents who had failed to send their children to
school. The sphere of my special jurisdiction was
the Soho District, where " Notice B meetings," as
they were technically called, were held every fort-
night, and I had to determine, with the aid of the

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 185

" superintendent," whether or not the defaulting
parents should be prosecuted. One thing which
surprised me, and continues to surprise me when I
hear cases of non-attendance as a magistrate, was
that so few of those summoned protested loudly
against the rule of compulsion, and the hardship of
depriving parents of their children's possible earnings.
On the other hand, it was common enough to plead
that a boy had been regularly sent off to school in good
time, but would not go there, finding it more amusing
to play about with other boys in the streets. Some-
times the mother would bring the young malefactor
with her to be overawed into obedience ; and our super-
intendent, dragging him forward, and pointing to me,
would exclaim, " Look at that gentleman, and attend
to what he is about to say ; " whereupon I was ex-
pected to take up my parable, and, beginning with
the crime of "truancy," to indicate the gallows as
the inevitable end of such a career. But, after all,
these interviews gave one an insight into the life of
the London poor which I should never have obtained
otherwise, and I am sure that much real good can
be done by a mixture of firmness and kindly advice.
Difiicult cases which had come before some individual
member of the Board were occasionally discussed at
a general Committee on school attendance. I hap-
pened to have mentioned a case of this kind, when
one of my colleagues, suspecting me of weakness,
and jealous for the rigid enforcement of our Bye-
Laws, challenged me to state how I had dealt with
it. I replied, in language which I have no wish to

1 86 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

retract, " I laid down the law with great solemnity,
and gave private orders that it should not be en-
forced." Without such discretionary relaxations, I
believe that it would be simply impossible to maintain
a law of compulsory attendance.

When the official life of this School Board expired
in 1879, I did not oflfer myself for re-election, but I
can truly say that I parted from my colleagues with
a hearty respect for their industry and public spirit.
In the autumn of 1882, when a fresh election took
place, and "the policy of the Board" was rudely
assailed, I addressed a letter to the Times in defence
of that policy, from which I extract one passage : —

" Let me protest against the common, but quite delu-
sive idea that party spirit, in the usual sense, runs high on
the London School Board and colours most of its proceed-
ings. On the contrary, I have never belonged to any
public body in which controversy was so rarely conducted
on party lines, or in which ' cross divisions ' were so
frequent. I am sure that many of my colleagues seldom
or never considered the party aspect of the vote which
they were about to give, and, notwithstanding the subse-
quent introduction of an obstructive minority, I believe
that a disinterested zeal for the cause of education con-
tinues to animate a large majority of the present Board.
Indeed, the matters which occupy its attention are so
diverse as to defy party manipulation or classification.
An advocate of pure secular education may be in alliance
with the most bigoted denominationalist on industrial
school management. An advocate of rigorous economy
in salaries may act cordially with anti - economists in
strictly enforcing school attendance. An advocate of free
schools may join hands with a supporter of high school-
fees on the many vexed questions concerning the selection

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 187

of sites and construction of buildings. No permanent
division of parties is possible on a Board mainly engaged
in administration.

"But I go further, and assert that on the London
School Board, with all its faults, public spirit has
hitherto largely predominated oyer sectarian bias, as it
notoriously has over the temptations of pecuniary ia-
terest. It is no faint praise of a body dispensing vast
sums of money, and constantly dealing with house-owners
and contractors, to record the fact that no taint or sus-
picion of jobbery has yet rested upon it. Though person-
alities have too often been imported into its debates, I am
not aware that any member has ever imputed mercenary
or dishonourable motives to a colleague, except in one
instance where the imputation was ultimately withdrawn.
Until the claims of justice and of humanity were unreason-
ably pitted against each other in the St. Paul's Industrial
School case, the assumption always was that opponents
on the School Board were equally single-minded in their
devotion to educational interests, however irreconcilable
their differences of judgment. Not only so, but members
previously committed to one side of a question have often
been converted to another by their experience on the
Board, and have acknowledged their change of views with
a candour supposed to be impossible in political life. In
short, the prevailing sentiment among the members of the
London School Board has certainly been one of mutual
respect, and herein consists the chief secret of its success
in solving difficulties formerly regarded as insoluble."

I had been elected a Fellow of the Eoyal Geogra-
phical Society in 1863, under the dignified Presidency
of Sir Roderick Murchison, and became a member
of its Council about ten years later, since which
time I have often been re-appointed. Not that
I have the least claim to such a position, either as a

1 88 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

traveller or as a scientific geographer, but it was
thouglit tliat I might render some little service in
connection with the educational work of the Society,
and I have always taken a very warm interest in all
its proceedings. It is easy to disparage the Koyal
Geographical Society as the least scientific and most
popular of scientific bodies, but I greatly doubt
whether any scientific body, except the Royal
Society, can render a better account of solid contri-
butions to science, in its larger sense. Happily for
some of us, it is generally possible to follow the
papers read before it without a scientific training ;
but, inasmuch as the earth is the basis and theatre
of almost all scientific research, it would be wonder-
ful if the promotion of geographical knowledge had
not contributed — and it is demonstrable that it has
contributed most powerfully — to advance all the other
sciences.

In its origin it was virtually an ofishoot from
the Royal Society itself, and Sir Joseph Banks, who
presided so long over that Society, did much to
prepare the way for its foundation. This took place
in July 1830, and it has ever since taken the leading
part in all the great explorations, organised by English-
men, which have opened up every part of the globe,
except the regions surrounding the North and South
Poles. The illustrious list of its Presidents is second
only to that of the Royal Society, while the list of
its medallists contains the names of all the eminent
geographical explorers of the last seventy years.
Among these, a large proportion are the names of

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 189

foreigners ; and it speaks well for the cosmopolitan
spirit of the Society, that in the year 1899, within a
few months of the Fashoda incident, both the
Founder's and the Patron's Medal should have been
conferred upon Frenchmen. It is only the great
popularity of the. Society, and the large number of
its so-called Fellows, which has given it the means of
initiating and subsidising geographical expeditions ;
and if that now being organised for the purpose of
Antarctic discovery should prove to be successful,
nearly the whole credit of it will be due to the Royal
Geographical Society, and especially to its President,
Sir Clements Markham. On the other hand, it is
inevitable that an association so popular in its char-
acter, and numbering 4000 members, should occasion-
ally be agitated by vehement controversies ; and I
can remember three or four somewhat tumultuous
meetings, especially one on the admission of women
as Fellows, which threatened to imperil the peace of
the Society. However, by dint of a little tact, it
has tided over every crisis successfully, and the chief
danger which I see in the future is, that by the
mere progress of exploration it may have no fresh
worlds to conquer, the whole field of geographical
research, in the proper sense, having been exhausted.
A pleasant adjunct of the Geographical Society
is the Geographical Club, which has a friendly dinner
before each of the evening meetings. To my con-
nection with the Society and Club I owe the personal
acquaintance of distinguished officers in both Services,
men eminent in the scientific world, and others whom

I90 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

I should probably never have met in other circles.
Perhaps none of these was more highly qualified for
the position of President, which he so long filled,
than the late Sir Henry Rawlinson. To his long
experience in India, his achievements in Oriental
research, his political sagacity, and his wide know-
ledge of geography in all its branches, he added
great conversational powers, and a wonderful stock
of anecdotes. His stories illustrating the endurance
of men and animals in Persia and other parts of the
East would have been well worth collecting and
preserving. One of them, for which he vouched,
I found it equally impossible to believe or to
disbelieve. He stated that, in making a forced
march of several hundred miles, with relays of
horses, at the rate of a hundred miles a day, he
overtook an express-messenger riding a highly-bred
mule (without relays) at the same rate. This was
at the end of his first day's journey, and the man
reached Sir Henry's destination (which, I think, was
a camp near Herat), a few hours after Sir Henry
himself But this was not all, for the mule and
his rider had already covered the same ground in
the opposite direction at the same pace, and were
on their return trip when Sir Henry fell in with
them ; moreover, they afterwards repeated the feat
by covering it a third time from Herat back
again. Altogether, they actually traversed above
two thousand) n)iles, according to the story, within
twenty-five days, including a rest of some forty-
eight hours at each end of the course.

LIEE AND WORK IN LONDON 191

Several of my colleagues on the Council of the
Geographical Society have been naval officers of
Arctic experience, and if I single out from among these
the name of the late Sir George Back, it is partly
out of gratitude for his genial hospitality, and partly
for the sake of preserving a good story which he
told me of himself. When he was in command of a
ship, as a younger man, he became conscious that he
was treated with scanty respect by his own officers,
and discovered by degrees that his first-lieutenant
was the real instigator of disaflFection. One night,
therefore, he took this man aside on the quarter-
deck, spoke freely and confidentially on the affairs
of the ship, and ended by expressing his gratification
in the assurance that he was ably and loyally sup-
ported by the whole body of his officers. On parting
from him, as he afterwards learned, the first-lieu-
tenant went down below, and addressing the other
officers (who had said nothing), remarked, in a loud
tone, " You fellows may say what you like, but I'll
be d d if our captain is not one of the best-
hearted men that I have ever known in my life."
After this he observed a marked change in the
manner of all his subordinates. At the Geographical
Club I have met a great many celebrated travellers,
including H. M. Stanley and Nansen, fresh from their
latest journeys. Both of these showed a power of
describing their experiences in a graphic and effective
manner, and, considering that Nansen is a foreigner,
I have always thought his narrative of his Arctic
expedition in the Albert Hall a marvellous exhibition

192 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

of nerve and resource in speaking. Here was a man
who had carried his life in his hand for months, with
a single companion, suddenly confronted with the
greatest audience that could be assembled in London,
yet no more embarrassed by the presence of the
Prince of Wales and thousands of eager listeners
than if he were still battling with the ice-floes of
the Arctic Ocean. But, with few exceptions, great
travellers are not great orators, and as they are also
anxious not to spoil the sale of their forthcoming
books, I have often been disappointed that men with
so much to say should contrive to say so little.

My second contest at Woodstock had brought me
into direct contact with the Agricultural Labourers'
Union, but I had made acquaintance still earlier with
Mr. Joseph Arch, of whom I desire to speak with
respect. I think we met first at a friend's house in
London, we met again in Lord Dufferin's house in
Quebec, and after 1874 I had the opportunity of
conversing with him on various occasions. His
biography informs us that, at one time, he did
not escape calumnious imputations. I know nothing
of these ; all I can say is that I never had the
least reason to doubt either his sincerity or his
honesty, and I could wish that all Trades' Union
leaders had an equally clear record. He possessed
several eminent gifts for conducting the movement
of which he was the pioneer, and I felt great sym-
pathy with its legitimate objects, but it would
perhaps have been too much to expect that he
should have studied the Labour question from its

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 193

economical side. I often warned my audiences at
Woodstock against the ignorant and passionate
statements of the Chronicle, published by the
Agricultural Labourers' Union, but I must say
that, so far as I am aware, its spokesmen were
honourably distinguished from those of other
Unions by never advocating violence or breaches
of the law. My knowledge of the movement
is not wide enough to warrant me in stating
this confidently, but I never heard at Woodstock
of Unionist labourers assaulting or coercing non-
Unionists, and, though it may have occurred else-
where during a temporary strike, the practice has
not been general enough to fill much space (if any) in
the newspapers. Contrast this with the conduct of
the Dock Labourers, and the avowed policy of their
leaders, in the great strike of 1889. It was never
pretended for a moment that plenty of men were not
willing and anxious to go on working at the docks
on the old terms, but the right of the strikers to
keep them out, by fair means or foul, was openly
proclaimed, and — what is worse — by their culpable
inaction, the Home Ofl&ce authorities virtually sanc-
tioned the practical assertion of this right. Day
after day, hundreds of honest men with families,
desirous of work, were forcibly deprived of it and
thrust back from the Dock gates, by threats and
personal maltreatment, in presence of the police,
who apparently were forbidden, as a rule, to protect
them. Cardinal Manning and other influential per-
sons espoused the side of the wrong-doers, and a

N

194 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

large section of the public, both in this country and
in the colonies, in a fit of impulsive sympathy,
actively supported them under the specious fiction of
providing for their families, while they were out of
work, and unlawfully keeping others out. Happily,
the police magistrates dealt vigorously with the few
cases that came before them, and when a gas strike
broke out not long afterwards, the Government
awoke to a sense of its duty. The police were
ordered to enforce the law, the Chairman of the Gas
Company showed more resolution than the Directors
of the Dock Company, and organised intimidation
collapsed. But for this fortunate sequel, it is diflfi-
cult to say how far the anarchical spirit kindled by
the Dock Strike, and aggravated by the shameful
mismanagement of it, might have spread among the
industrial classes throughout the country.

During this period of comparative idleness, I
took a somewhat active part on the Committee of
the Cobden Club, then engaged in issuing a series of
useful publications by no means confined to advocacy
of Free Trade. I had already contributed an Essay
on the " Law and Custom of Primogeniture " to a
volume entitled "Systems of Land Tenure," which
appeared in 187 1. This Essay, afterwards published
in my " Political Studies," contained the fullest ex-
position of its subject which had then been attempted,
but has since been followed by more learned works.
It is remarkable that no serious attempt has yet
been made to reform the Law or to limit the
Custom, notwithstanding the almost unanimous con-

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 195

sent of those who have carefully studied this feature
of the English Land-system from Blackstone down-
wards. In 1875 I contributed a similar Essay on
" Local Government in England " to a volume deal-
ing with the principal systems of Local Government
prevailing in various countries. This Essay, unlike
the other, has been quoted more than once in the
House of Commons, and has not been without its
effect in promoting the reform of Local Government
since carried out. But the method of reform which
it recommended differed materially from that actu-
ally adopted, while it resembled that proposed by
Mr. Goschen in 1871. For it contemplated a recon-
struction of local institutions from the parish or
township upwards, instead of one beginning with
County Councils, working downwards, and ending
with Parish Councils. My volume, entitled " Eng-
lish Land and English Landlords," also published by
the Cobden Club, was a more considerable effort.
Its object was to present, within a moderate com-
pass, a tolerably complete and trustworthy view of
the whole agrarian and agricultural system of Eng-
land for the information of students, both English
and foreign. No summary of its contents would be
readable or profitable, but I may say that in follow-
ing out the history of British agriculture the conclu-
sion was forced upon me that it never had a golden
age. Now and then war prices enriched farmers, and
still more landlords, for a few years together ; but
prosperity soon made them indolent and improvident,
the old poor-law reduced their profits by crushing

196 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

rates, and practically, I believe, there are few instances
of men having made fortunes out of cultivating
the land. It is curious, too, how inveterate the ten-
dency is to contrast the luxury of the present with
the rustic simplicity of the past. There is a well-
known distich in which the hunting farmer, with his
fine-lady wife and her piano, his hoys learning Greek
and Latin, and his girls arrayed in silk and satin, is
unfavourably compared with his ruder father or
grandfather working like a drudge on his farm with
all his family. But this distich, which is often quoted
as if it were new and meant to describe the difference
between the farmer of our own day and the farmer in
the early part of the century — as, indeed, it well
might be, — was really written in the early part of
the century, and idealised the hard-working farmer
in the reign of George II.

Another fact which strongly arrested my attention
was the inordinate multiplication of middle-men
between the farmer and the consumer, and its very
important effect in diminishing the farmer's profits.
The late Mr. Bence-Jones, who farmed on a large
scale in the West of Ireland, assured me that butter
made on his own estate paid six profits before it could
reach the London householder — three in England and
three in Ireland : to obviate which, for his own bene-
fit, he supplied one of the London Clubs direct from
his Irish dairy. A still more familiar illustration may
be given. The breeding and keeping of fowls must
have yielded a profit, however small, when fowls sold
at three and sixpence a couple at country towns

LIFE AND WORK IN LONDON 197

sixty years ago ; the expense of keeping and feeding
them has since been somewhat reduced by the cheap-
ness of meal and other foodstuffs ; and, since they
now fetch seven shillings a couple at similar towns,
they ought to bring in a profit of at least a hundred
per cent. But the hard-working and thrifty farmers'
wives who then reared them and jogged to market
with them have long passed away, and have been
succeeded by dealers, who save the farmer much
trouble, but relieve him of profit to a degree which
few realise.

Of course, after my retirement from journalism,
I had more leisure both for seeking a constituency
and for enjoying London society. Many and amus-
ing were my interviews with electioneering agents
and local Committees, who had either heard of my
campaigns at Woodstock, or found my name on the
list of would-be candidates at the office of the Liberal
Whip. Perhaps the most grotesque overture which
I received was from an agent of some pretensions, who
proposed to me that I should espouse the cause of a
bogus claimant to a great estate — not the Tichborne
estate — as the price of his support in a certain
borough, where he was falsely represented to have
great influence. I had more serious negotiations with
some other boroughs, such as Brighton, Portsmouth,
and Guildford, but was no longer prepared to accept
anything less than a winning chance, and nearly
all those which I declined proved losing chances in
the end. On December 28, 1878, I delivered at
Guildford a carefully -prepared Address on "Imperial-

198 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

ism and Liberal Policy," in which I endeavoured to
draw the line between true and false Imperialism —
the Imperialism which is opposed to a "Little Eng-
land" conception of our colonial responsibilities, and
the Imperialism of the so-called "Jingo" party, which
seemed to measure national greatness by the constant
annexation of new territories. Two years before,
the Queen had assumed the title of Empress of India,
a step which, in common with most Liberals, I then
condemned, though I now think it may have been
justified by adequate reasons of State. Those who
defended it laid great stress on the assurance that
Her Majesty would never be called Empress in the
United Kingdom, and I always wondered that no
one happened to quote the strangely apposite saying
of Casca, in " Julius Csesar," when he reports the
intention of the Senate to make Cjesar a king :

"And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place save here in Italy."

In those days there was no question of my standing
for a county. Contests for counties, not yet sub-
divided, were too expensive for candidates of small
means but prepared for hard work, such as those
who often stand now for the new county divisions.
These divisions exact an amount of speaking beyond
anything formerly required, when a few great
meetings were enough for an ordinary borough
(though not for Woodstock), and a county candidate
only needed to make one speech in each market-
town, whereas he is now expected to make one in

LONDON SOCIETY 199

each of sixty or seventy villages. Since the Corrupt
Practices Act was passed, elections, and especially
county elections, have become less costly, but I fear
that in many cases more numerous subscriptions, as
well as more frequent public appearances, are de-
manded from the sitting member. I have often pre-
dicted that, since these demands have grown heavier,
and the House of Commons has ceased to be " the
pleasantest Club in London," men of high social
position and independent character would become
less and less willing to solicit a seat in Parliament.
It surely tells well for the energy and public spirit of
English gentlemen that, so far, my predictions have
not been verified.

No one man can be competent to offer a com-
plete, or even an approximately complete, descrip-
tion of what is called London society at the end
of the nineteenth century. Sir George Trevelyan,
in his " Early Days of Charles James Fox," has
reminded us how narrow the circle of this society
was in the last half of the last century, and even
at a later period in the reign of George III. it was
possible for all who constituted it to be received
at Court, and to be on terms of imaginary acquaint-
ance with each other. Sir Algernon West, my
junior by a year, but a much older Londoner, has
drawn an excellent picture in his " Recollections,"
not only of every-day life in London soon after the
Queen's accession, but of the notable personalities
and privileged salons which still dominated the
West End. Nowadays, this is wholly impossible ;

200 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

London society consists of scores or hundreds of
little systems whose orbits rarely touch each other ;
and I have myself dined out three or four times
a week, for twenty or thirty years, without once
meeting friends whom I knew to be dining out as
often as myself in houses of the same class. I
would not, therefore, presume to compare London
society as it was some forty years ago with London
society as it is now, especially as I was never a
member of the gay world, and have mingled with it
less than ever since it has been ruled by a younger
generation.

No one, however, can have lived in London so
much as I have, and for so many years, belonging
to clubs and associating with friends of various
types, without observing some features distinctive
of our own time. It is needless to say that I do
not reckon among these the organised pursuit of
pleasure, the senseless despotism of fashion, the
worship of rank among plebeians, or the ignoble
deference to mere wealth among patricians. The
West End of London has been " Vanity Fair " ever
since the days of Pepys's and Evelyn's "Diaries,"
of Swift's "Journal to Stella," of Lord Hervey's
" Memoirs," and of the many Diaries and Biographies
illustrating social life and manners during the reign
of George III. and the Regency. There have always
been match-making mothers, scheming aventurieres,
oppressive rules of etiquette, mutual admiration
societies, and exclusive coteries ; indeed, no social
tyranny within the last seventy years has been

LONDON SOCIETY 201

so wide-spread and yet so centralised as that of
Almack's. Even the practice not only of giving
balls in borrowed houses, but of getting the guests
invited by others with longer visiting-lists, is not, I
believe, so modern as might be supposed. The
shameless homage paid by aristocratic fortune-seekers
to Hudson the Eailway King, and by their wives
to Mrs. Hudson, preceded by fifty years the pitiable
disclosures elicited by the proceedings on Hooley's
bankruptcy, the chief difference being that Hudson's
suitors only sought allotments of shares below their
value, while Hooley's nominees were alleged to have
sold their names for lucrative directorships and large
pecuniary bribes. The merit of novelty cannot be
claimed for the London "crush" itself — that re-
ductio ad ahsurdum of social intercourse — where
the most eminent men and proudest women in the
metropolis are to be seen painfully struggling up
a staircase, where those who force an entrance into
the drawing-room are so jammed that it takes
several minutes to reach the other end of the room,
where no two people can exchange a word of con-
versation in earnest, where getting out is as tedious
as getting in, and where a perfect combination of
all these discomforts constitutes a perfect success.
In most essential respects, it may be said that
London society is the same as ever ; in some essen-
tial respects, it has been greatly improved. The disuse
of hard drinking among gentlemen ; the coincident,
and perhaps consequent, abolition of duelling; the
marked growth of philanthropy, and the almost

202 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

fashionable exhibition by the rich of practical sym-
pathy with the poor — these are signs of the times
which it • is pleasant to recognise. Nor is it un-
worthy of notice that, by the action of some occult
law, the race of dandies, who figured so largely
in old novels, has well-nigh become extinct. Hand-
some young fellows may think somewhat too much
of their personal appearance, and spend too much
on dress ; but these are venial weaknesses, and sanc-
tioned by the custom of many generations. Unlike
the dandy of a hundred years ago, who seldom left
the West End and never dreamed of athletic
exercise, these same young fellows may be found
on Scotch moors or Swiss mountains, and, if they
happen to be in the Army, are ready to rough it
with the hardiest in severe campaigns, as has been
nobly shown in South Africa.

Still, there have been more doubtful changes in
London society within the last thirty or forty
years, and — let it be said frankly — since the Queen
abandoned the leadership of it after the death of
the Prince Consort. One of these changes, for good
or for evil, is the much greater freedom claimed by
and allowed to women, especially to young women.
I am not one of those who take a censorious view
of this inevitable change of manners, or think the
worse of it because it may have been imported from
America. Before it came in, I used to ask what
Christianity and civilisation could be worth, if two
young people of opposite sexes must not take a
friendly walk together on pain of incurring suspicion

LONDON SOCIETY 203

or scandal. I welcome the discovery that girls,
no less than boys, are gifted with muscular powers,
to be developed by exercise with benefit to their
health, and the remarkable increase of strength and
stature among young ladies which has been the fruit
of this discovery. I regard with pleasure the assimi-
lation of studies and tastes which has corrected
the flimsiness of female education and encouraged
boys to cultivate " accomplishments " without being
ashamed of it, which has thus enriched the common
stock of ideas and interests between young men
and young women, and which enables them to share
an innocent camaraderie formerly monopolised by
one sex only in England, though not in America.
I like to see young women manly, in the best sense,
without being masculine, and young men as gentle
and self-restrained as girls, without being eflfeminate;
and I am slatisfied that, on the whole, happier
marriages will result from a relaxation of the old
code of chaperonage. Nor do I wholly blame the
extraordinary diminution of reserve which enables
young people to exchange opinions on all possible
subjects, no longer through whispers in the secret
chambers, but through open talk in drawing-rooms,
and even ballrooms. Having said thus much, I
cannot shut my eyes to abuses, actual as well as
possible, of the more liberal code which now prevails,
abuses which occasionally show themselves in the
conduct of young married women even more than in
that of unmarried girls. I recall an interesting
conversation with Mr. Gladstone, in which he dwelt

2 04 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

most earnestly on these abuses, and expressed a con-
viction that London society had become demoralised
by the suspension of salutary restrictions. I com-
bated his view as well as I could, but I confess that
I should now do so with less confidence. Unless
I am greatly misinformed, though London society
as a whole is as pure as ever, there are larger and
more numerous circles within it to which his stric-
tures are justly applicable than 1 then supposed, or
than was the fact when London was my chief home.

Another, but less serious, change which has come
about within the last thirty or forty years is the
marvellous increase of evening amusements and dis-
tractions, almost superseding friendly dinner-parties,
among the many habitual patrons of theatres and
similar entertainments, or converting such dinners
into hurried but sumptuous meals at hotels or
restaurants, preliminary to " going on." The decay
of breakfast-parties, which I for one lament, is a
change of less importance, because the enjoyment
of them was confined to few, since men of business
could seldom attend them, and ladies hardly ever
appeared. But the survivors of those who could
and did attend them would bear witness in their
favour ; and though I never aspired to rival the
success of such hosts as Samuel Rogers or Lord
Houghton, I invariably found that a breakfast-party
of eight, composed of diverse elements, if it did not
rise to being a feast of reason, at least promoted
a flow of soul. In such a party, naturally dividing
itself into two sets of four, it is possible for conversa-

LONDON SOCIETY 205

tion sometimes to become general ; and I think I
have listened to better conversation across a break-
fast-table than I have ever heard across a dinner-
table. Unfortunately, the art of conversation, if not
lost, has grievously degenerated under the influence
of the same causes which have affected the style
of journalism. I do not mean that " talking like
a book" has ceased to be fashionable — that would,
in itself, be an improvement — but that slang is
the order of the day, even in good society ; that
few people deign to finish their sentences, or to
let you finish yours ; and that a real interchange
of thought at social gatherings has become rarer
than it used to be. Perhaps some of the best speci-
mens of modern talk are to be heard in smoking-
rooms ; and I regret that my inveterate habit of
going to bed early has caused me to lose so many
of them.

Of course, the fashions of dissipation change as
rapidly as the fashions of feminine dress, and if
Major Pendennis should return to life, he would
find much to astonish him. For instance. Clubs,
Theatres, and Music Halls have sprung up like
mushrooms since his day, grand Sunday water-
parties and parties on the terrace of the House of
Commons are still more recent innovations, and
every summer contributes its own quota to new in-
ventions of amusement. But the " London season"
itself unhappUy monopolises the same period of the
year as ever, though it has been somewhat curtailed
of late years at the end. In other countries a far

2o6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

more rational apportionment of time prevails ; society
enjoys the beauties of the country in the summer,
and assembles in the capital for the winter. Even
in this country the London season was once con-
sidered to end with June 4, being the birthday of
George III. Assuming that Christmas must be
spent in country-houses, the period between Christ-
mas and Easter or Whitsuntide might naturally be
appropriated to London gaieties, and I have never
heard any reason alleged against this arrangement
excepting the convenience of hunting-men. Now,
hunting-men constitute but a fraction of London
society as it is now constituted, and even they, if
their country residences should happen to be within
a moderate distance, might easily combine their
choicest London engagements with two or three
days a week of their favourite pastime. The Parlia-
mentary Session already begins early in February,
and if the Sovereign were to set the example of
residing in London and holding levies or drawing-
rooms before Easter, I greatly doubt whether either
the allurements of hunting or the exigencies of
Lent would stand in the way of this social revolu-
tion. Another social revolution, equally unexpected,
has accomplished itself silently and insensibly in the
present generation. Thirty years ago flats were
comparatively few, and mainly occupied by old
bachelors or strong-minded ladies. It was supposed
that an Englishman's house would cease to be his
castle unless it were protected by a separate hall-
door, and that English traditions of domestic privacy

LONDON SOCIETY 207

were too inveterate to admit of common staircases,
not to speak of common refreshment-rooms. But
these deeply-rooted ideas have been completely
broken down. The convenience and economy of
having all the rooms of a dwelling on one floor,
with the advantage of being able to shut it up
safely for months and leave the keys with a porter,
are now so widely acknowledged, that vast blocks
of flats have sprung up in every quarter of London,
and command enormous rents. Indeed, the rents of
bachelors' lodgings and chambers in Mayfair and
the districts north and south of it have been almost
doubled within my own recollection, and the young
law student or City clerk of limited income must
go further afield to find apartments within his
means. But then underground railways have come
to his aid, as well as cheap omnibuses traversing
streets and squares formerly reserved for private
carriages, or he can bicycle almost into the heart
of the City along the Thames Embankment. These
and like changes, superficial or radical, in the social
life of London, would supply infinite materials for
such diaries as that of Pepys ; but no single diarist,
nor even an organised company of diarists, could
possibly group them into one synoptical picture for
the benefit of future historians.

CHAPTER XI

SEXCENTENARY OF MERTON COLLEGE
1874

IMPRESSIONS OF CAMBRIDGE

Sexcentenary of Merton College — Peterliouse — Contrasts between
Oxford and Cambridge.

The sexcentenary festival of Merton College, held
in 1874, attracted attention beyond the confines
of the University, as commemorating an event which
in its consequences proved to be of national import-
ance. The original foundation of the College, indeed,
dates from 1264, and had been celebrated in 1864,
but the first " House of Scholars " was located at
Maiden in Surrey, with a branch at Oxford, and it
was not until 1274 that Oxford was designated as
their exclusive and permanent home. Before that
year, Oxford students had lived in monasteries,
licensed halls, or private chambers, under little or no
discipline, and in a state of squalid discomfort which
is now difiicult to conceive. It was to Walter de
Merton that it first occurred to establish within the
precincts of the University a great seminary of
secular clergy, modelled on the monastic idea of self-
government and domestic rule, but unmonastic and
even anti-monastic in its objects and essential char-

2o3

SEXCENTENARY OF MERTON 209

acter. In founding Merton, he founded the College I
system in both the great English Universities, and '
his statutes of 1 2 74, viewed across the interval of six
centuries, astonish us by their comprehensive wisdom
and foresight. These statutes continued in force
within my own memory ; they are a marvellous
repertory of minute and sagacious provisions govern-
ing every detail of College life, and they have become
the pattern of all other College statutes at Oxford
and Cambridge. It fell to my lot at the first sex-
centenary celebration, in 1864, to propose the toast,
" Stetfortuna domus" in an historical speech, which
formed as it were a text for the " Memorials of Merton
College," which I published twenty years later. In
December 1884, Peterhouse, the oldest College in
Cambridge, followed the example of Merton by cele-
brating the 600th anniversary of its foundation.
This College, like the older Oxford Colleges, was in
its origin almost a copy of Merton, and its founder
expressly ordained that it should be governed accord-
ing to Merton rules. Recognising this almost filial
relation to my own College, the Master and Fellows
kindly invited me to be present on the occasion, and
to respond for the older society. The late Duke of
Clarence was one of the company, which included an
unusually brilliant . assemblage of guests, and several
very good after-dinner speeches were delivered, in-
cluding one from Lowell, the American Minister. I
cannot, however, forget my consternation when I
looked down the list of toasts, and found that I was
one of some thirty advertised to speak. Happily,

210 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

there was safety in numbers, and every one cut his
speech mercifully short, but the festivities were in-
evitably prolonged to a very late hour.

This would not be the place to descant on the
antiquities of Merton College, the interest of which
is well known to all who have any acquaintance with
the architectural history of the University. It is
\ not, however, generally realised that Merton is the
I only College which has collegiate buildings of the
thirteenth century, and the only College, except
' New College and (perhaps) Trinity, which has col-
legiate buildings of the fourteenth century, for the
Saxon and Norman architecture of the Cathedral
did not become collegiate until the reign of Henry
•j VIII. The Merton Library is admitted to be the
I oldest specimen of mediaeval libraries in England ;
but perhaps a still greater curiosity is the Merton
Treasury, or muniment-room. In this antique and
' fireproof chamber, with its high-pitched roof of solid
! masonry, the records and title-deeds of the College
I have been safely guarded for six centuries, with a
beautifully written and ornamented Catalogue, itself
,1 six hundred years old, and still in use, of the docu-
ments then in our possession. There is probably no
family and no other institution in England which
possesses such a relic, and I have always felt a certain
pride in unlocking it to foreigners, especially to
Americans, in whose native country buildings less
than two hundred years old, and in the worst style
of Georgian architecture, pass for being venerable.
There are other English towns, such as London, York,

SEXCENTENARY OF MERTON 211

and Chester, far more ancient than Oxford, and many
of our Castles and Abbeys were built a century or
inore before Merton was founded ; but there are very
few corporate bodies, if auy, which have so unbroken
a history of equal duration, partly based on contem-
porary lists of Wardens and Fellows regularly kept
since the reign of Henry V., and partly on a domestic
chronicle regularly continued since the reign of
Richard III.

Of course, these are aspects of College life
which cannot be explained by local guides to mixed
parties of holiday-makers patrolling the College in
summer, and which are only half appreciated by
many residents ; but I am quite sure that some of
our visitors from the Continent and our Colonies
have carried away from Merton deep impressions of
how the home of an undying corporation may be
preserved in an old country with the Conservative
instinct of England. On several occasions, I had the
pleasure of conducting such visitors over our buildings
and gardens. In 1894, the College boarded and
lodged for a week about twenty scientific men, both
English and foreign, attending the famous meeting
of the British Association when Lord Salisbury
presided. They enjoyed themselves thoroughly,
and their gratitude more than repaid us for any
trouble incurred on their behalf In 1895, I niyself
entertained in the College Hall a large party from
the Geographical Congress then in session, and in
1897 I entertained a similar party of colonial guests,
most of whom had come to England for the Queen's

212 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Jubilee. In both cases I took care to sbow my
parties a few of the objects best worth seeing in
Merton and other Colleges, well knowing that no
other place in Europe, except Cambridge, offers the
same attractive spectacle of modern Academical life
in a mediaeval framework. I like to believe that
among the many hundreds of friends who have kindly
stayed with me in the Warden's house at Merton,
not a few have imbibed a new sense of the respect
due to associations so deeply rooted in the past, so
fruitful of good in the present, so difl&cult to create,
and yet so easy to destroy.

My visit to Peterhouse was but the renewal of a
very old acquaintance with Cambridge. Indeed, my
first view of it dates further back than my first view
of Oxford, and, as I have mentioned, I spent a fort-
night there in the summer of 1847, three years
before I went into residence at Oxford. At that time
my father intended me to be a member of Trinity,
and only abandoned this intention on my breaking
down in 1848, when he decided to avoid the risk of
my overworking myself again in reading for double
honours, little appreciating my distaste for Mathe-
matics, and little foreseeing that I should actually
read for two First Classes at Oxford. During the
last fifty years, I have constantly revisited Cambridge,
and been hospitably entertained at King's, Peter-
house, St. John's, Trinity Hall, and, above all.
Trinity College, the present master of which, Dr
Butler, is one of my oldest friends. Until the Ad
Eundem and Ambarum Clubs were founded for the

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 213

purpose of bringing together young Dons of the two
Universities, it used to be said that no one was so
ignorant of Oxford as a Cambridge man, or of Cam-
bridge as an Oxford man. That was never my case.
Ever since my early acquaintance with Cambridge, I
have always recognised it and felt towards it as
the sister University, never countenancing invidious
comparisons between it and my own, or doubting its
claim to complete equality with Oxford in all respects
but antiquity. Even in this respect I see no reason
to believe that it was far behind, nor have I yet
embraced the learned theory of Mr. H. Eashdall,
that as Oxford was (or must have been) a swarm
from Paris, so Cambridge was (or must have been) a
swarm from Oxford. What is certain is that Oxford
was by far the more eminent University in the Middle
Ages ; that with the Renaissance and the Reformation
Cambridge became a formidable rival and perhaps
took precedence ; that Oxford resumed the lead in
the seventeenth century until the unique fame of
Newton brought Cambridge again to the front ; that
Cambridge more than maintained this position in
the eighteenth century, and that in the nineteenth
century there has been a generous competition
on perfectly even terms between our two older
Universities. From a foreign point of view,
indeed, no difference is perceptible, unless it
be in natural beauties and dignity of surround-
ings, though it is very difficult to surpass the
combination of buildings, foliage, and water at
Cambridge in the Summer Term. Nevertheless,

214 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

there are differences, as Oxford and Cambridge
men know, which, being characteristic, may be
worth noticing.

I will first mention certain points in which I
should assign the superiority to Cambridge. Though
it has lately borrowed much from the Oxford system
of reading the classics mainly for the sake of their
substance, its studies are still far less speculative,
and therefore more conducive to docility of mind.
There is less cultivation of style, which is not an
unmixed advantage, but there is also more intoler-
ance of specious rhetoric. Again, there is a greater
disposition among Cambridge than among Oxford
students to mind their own business, that of educa-
tion and learning, rather than to enlighten the world
on theology and politics. I have always thought it
creditable and beneficial to Cambridge that it had no
Cambridge " Movement," and I can sympathise with
the esprit de corps of an eminent Cambridge wrangler
who meditated joining the Church of Rome, but drew
back on being reminded that he would be the first
man of his order to go over. Hence the Evangelical
school of thought has been more strongly represented
at Cambridge ever since the days of Simeon, and the
strange alliance between Radicalism and Ritualism
has scarcely reared its baleful head in that University.
The Cambridge examination system, too, if it be
somewhat narrower in its scope, seems to me to fulfil
its ends better, to be more carefully worked, and to
produce more accurate results. There may be a
question whether the schools of Natural Science at

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 215

Cambridge set before themselves so high an aim as
those at Oxford, but no one can deny that in make-
shift buildings, far less ambitious and infinitely less
expensive than those at Oxford, a larger number of
students are extremely well taught. Partly because
it is less overrun by visitors, but partly also because
it cherishes old-fashioned traditions of a scholar's
life, Cambridge retains more simplicity of habits
than Oxford, and is enviably free from a too modern
atmosphere of thought and action.

On the other hand, in my judgment, Cambridge
has much to learn from Oxford as regards its
collegiate and tutorial system. Not to speak of
the other larger Colleges, the mere size of Trinity
is hopelessly fatal to its social and disciplinary
unity, constituting it in fact a University within
a University. But, apart from the disproportion-
ate size of Trinity and one or two other Colleges,
the whole idea of tutorial superintendence differs
materially at the two Universities. For instance,
a Cambridge undergraduate's bills are supposed to
be sent in by his tradespeople through his tutor' — a
degree of surveillance which is not professed at Oxford.
But then his tutor is not supposed to be the director of
his studies, and, as I have already said, a parent who
has already paid tuition-fees discovers that, if his son
is to be really instructed, he must pay extra fees to a
coach. An amusing illustration of this is the so-called
" Long Vacation Term " at Cambridge. Residence
during the Long Vacation is not recognised at all by
the University ; neither Professors nor College tutors,

2i6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

as such, have anything to do with it ; what is meant by
the expression is merely that certain eminent coaches
agree to instruct their pupils at Cambridge during a
part of the summer, instead of taking them on
reading-parties, and Colleges facilitate this by letting
men stay up. But so necessary is coaching that such
informal arrangements suffice to create a " Long
Vacation Term." There are other respects in which
greater laxity and freedom are allowed to students
under the Cambridge than under the Oxford system.
For example, it is much easier to obtain leave of
absence for a night or two during Term-time, and
permission to give dinner-parties in College rooms ;
against which, however, may be set the stricter en-
forcement of rules enjoining the use of Academical
costume. A curious proof of this came under my
own notice, when a Unionist meeting, addressed by
the Duke of Argyll and the Master of Trinity, as
well as by myself, was disturbed and nearly broken
up by a rowdy mob of Home Eulers, headed by
undergraduates in caps and gowns. It may be added
that Cambridge Colleges are supposed to adopt a
lower standard of proficiency for the admission of
freshmen — a supposition which those best acquainted
with the Oxford standard will be the slowest to
credit. It is more certain that Cambridge has opened
its arms wider to welcome medical and other profes-
sional studies, including that of engineering, but I
am not prepared to regard this as any degradation of
the Academical ideal. One of its eflfects has been to
undermine the exclusive dualism of " classics " and

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE 217

"mathematics," which so long distinguished Cam-
bridge, and made Cambridge men wonder that Oxford
men had so large a stock of knowledge and interests
in common. Still less would I indicate as a mark of
inferiority the comparative narrowness of " society "
at Cambridge. ^ No doubt, the great influx of non-
Academical residents has improved Oxford as a social
centre, but the question remains whether it is well
for a University town to be an attractive social
centre, and whether the very fact of its resembling
London so little is not an important gain on the side
of Cambridge.

CHAPTER XII

IMPRESSIONS OF SOME POLITICAL AND
LITERARY CHARACTERS

Reminiscences of statesmen — Mr. Gladstone's first Cabinet — Lord
Granville, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Cardwell, Mr. John Bright, Mr. Forster,
Lord Selbome, Mr. Gladstone — Reminiscences of other eminent
men, John Stuart Mill, Henry Fawcett, Freeman, Froude, Matthew
Arnold, Huxley, Archbishop Tait, Cardinal Manning, Dean Stanley,
Sir Andrew Clark — Parliamentary, pulpit, and platform eloquence.

As a journalist, and a candidate for Parliament,
mixing freely in London Society for some twenty-
five years, I was naturally brought into contact with
many persons who played an important part in the
politics of the last generation, and was in intimate
relations with some of them. I shall not, however,
attempt to add another series of literary portraits to
so many which have lately appeared, but only to
record briefly and simply the impression left upon
me by some of the eminent men whom I have per-
sonally known. The statesmen of the period before
the Queen's reign were fast passing away when I
began to live in London, and I was not in a position
to meet them in private life. Earl Eussell I knew
but slightly, and not until after his retirement from
office, when he was occupying Lord Tennyson's

house near Haslemere. Lord Palmerston and Lord

218

MR. GLADSTONE'S FIRST CABINET 219

Beaconsfield I never met but once in society — and
that, strange to say, was in Mr. Gladstone's house —
on two diflferent evenings. Sir George Grey, having
been a friend of my father, was very kind to me ; I
consulted him in difficulties on two occasions, and,
like all who knew him, I had the highest respect not
onl)' for his character, but for his capacity and judg-
ment. Except Sir Robert Peel, and perhaps Sir
James Graham, he represented better than any one
of his day the older traditions and dignified manners
of English statesmanship : when he retired, he never
thought of keeping himself before the public eye by
any of the arts now so familiar to us ; and when
he died, after some years of modest seclusion, the
general public had long been unconscious of his
existence. When Mr. Gladstone took office in
December 1869, his Cabinet was composed of fifteen |
Ministers, all of whom, except Lord Hatherley and j
Lord Clarendon, I was fortunate enough to know as
friends. This was probably the strongest Cabinet, )
in respect of intellectual ability, that has ever been |
constructed in our own times. Six of its members
were Oxford men of the highest Academical as well
as Parliamentary distinction ; all the rest were men
of great political experience and reputation. Five
of the fifteen are still living — the Dukes of Argyll
and Devonshire, the Marquis of Ripon, Lord
Kimberley, and Mr. Goschen, one of my oldest
personal friends. Of these I will not presume to
speak, for, though I think a rule De vivis nil nisi
honum would be quite as reasonable as De mortuis

220 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

nil nisi bonum, I confess that I dislike the modern
practice of publishing obituary notices of contempor-
aries during their lifetime. I will, therefore, only
mention the remarkable power of adaptation shown
by Mr. Goschen, when he was suddenly transferred
from the Poor-Law Board, of which he had thoroughly
mastered the business, to the Admiralty, where he had
everything to learn.

My acquaintance with Lord Granville grew up in
a way very characteristic of him. I had never been
introduced to him, but I suppose he must have heard
of me when he began nodding to me in Rotten Row,
of which both of us were habitues, following it up by
asking me to dinner, and ending by admitting me to
his friendship and staying with me at Oxford. His
was a notable example of a man with no special
training for politics and with no special love of work,
yet gifted with such a combination of patrician self-
possession, genial affability, instinctive tact, and real
tenacity of purpose, that he was able to fill great
offices of State with success, and to lead his party
admirably in the House of Lords, whether in opposi-
tion or in power. Here the velvet glove almost
sufficed by itself, and it was hardly ever necessary
for the iron hand to be felt beneath it. In foreign
affairs it was otherwise. Perhaps he sometimes mis-
calculated the efficacy of Parliamentary address in
applying it to diplomacy in earnest, especially when
he was playing the diplomatic game against such
opponents as Gortschakoff and Bismarck, for whom
he was scarcely a match. Mr. Bruce, afterwards

LORD SHERBROOKE 221

Lord Aberdare, had something in common with
Lord Granville, being the kindliest of men, a man
of great accomplishments, and an ornament of
society. He was a worthy pupil of Sir George Grey
at the Home Office, and, though I doubt whether he
ever quite enjoyed his work as Home Secretary under
Mr. Gladstone, he did it manfully and without
sparing himself. His Licensing Bill was, no doubt,
a Parliamentary failure, but not owing to any
intrinsic demerits ; and I believe there are few con-
versant with the subject who have not come to
recognise that it was framed on a sound basis, and
would have gone far to settle one of the most in-
tractable of domestic questions. It should ever be
remembered, to Lord Aberdare's honour, that when
Mr. Gladstone found himself unable to offer him a
seat in a later Cabinet, under the necessity of im-
porting new blood, he accepted his retirement with
admirable temper, and gave his old chief a most
loyal support from outside.

Mr. Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, was
probably one of the cleverest men who has entered
the House of Commons in the last half-century.
Having been a great scholar and teacher, he loved to
disparage the value of scholarship, and gave the rein
to his spontaneous wit in conversation after a fashion
the very reverse of pedantry or deference to authority.
No Minister was ever more unguarded, or less in-
clined to regard discretion as the better part of
valour in politics, and his offhand proposal of the
unlucky Match-tax certainly helped to weaken the

222 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Government. But he was a perfectly honest poli-
tician, and a genuine man ; one proof of which was
his close and lifelong friendship with his school|
fellows, Lord Cardwell and Lord Selborne, than
whom no two persons could have been found more
diflferent from him in temperament and character.
He began his political career in Australia, and was
always fond of referring to his Australian life.
Being once forced into a lawsuit with a clever
solicitor, he was advised by friends to compromise
the dispute with an opponent likely to prove his
superior in sharp practice. This advice Lowe in-
dignantly rejected. "I tell you," he said, "that I've
been to Botany Bay myself, and I know as many
scoundrels as he does." His Speeches on Keform in
1866, since published in a volume, were the most
brilliant and argumentative series of Parliamentary
orations delivered in that decade of political history,
and later experience has verified too many of the
predictions contained in them. I had occasion to
study them carefully, as I undertook the arduous
task of replying to them in another volume entitled
" Essays on Eeform." I there pointed out, what I
still hold, that Mr. Lowe had laid undue stress on
the ignorance, venality, selfishness, and other vices
of the working-classes, but I now see that I fell into
an error against which Mr. Lowe had not sufficiently
warned his readers. I assumed too easily that can-
didates of the higher class would do their best to
educate the new constituencies, and, without rising
altogether superior to party bias, would appeal to

LORD SHERBROOKE 223

the better feelings and aspirations of their hearers.
Mr. Lowe's acquaintance with demagogy in Australia
had convinced him of the very reverse. He knew
that men of ability and professing high principles
would not scruple to flatter the prejudices, pander to
the passions, and inflame the class antipathies, of
voters whom they might have educated, for the sake \
of winning their support. This is exactly what has j
occurred, and had I clearly discerned this aspect of the
question, whUe I should have advocated a moderate
extension of the franchise on other grounds, I should
have appreciated more justly the force of Mr. Lowe's
reasoning. I do not think he ever quite forgave me
for measuring swords with him in print, haud
virihus aequis, but a short letter which I received
from him, after sending him a copy of " Essays on
Eeform," may be worthy not only of quotation but of

consideration.

" 34 Lowndes Square,

March 15, 1867.

"Mt dear Brodrick, — "I am much obliged to you
for your book, and not at all aggrieved by your critique.
Indeed I ought to feel much flattered that mere speeches
are thought worth so serious a controversy. Let me point
out to you, what seems to have been generally overlooked,
that 'permanence is an element in my idea of good govern-
ment, and that this disposes of the argument which repre-
sents my principles as tending to arbitrary power. One of
the great merits, in my mind, of existing things in England
is that they offer, if let alone, a guarantee for their
permanence.

"I don't know exactly what meaning you attach to
the word 'Eight.' I mean such a claim as a man may
assert by force or by the aid of the State without violating

224 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS]

the Law of the Land. All other uses of the term seem to
me metaphors, and have this evil, that they imply the
justification of the individual in giving effect to them,
making him both Judge and Executioner in his own case.
But my objection is to a priori reasoning of any kind, not
merely from rights. You seem to think the way to judge
whether a measure should be adopted is to look to equality,
justice, and so on. I think you should rather look to the
effects such a measure has had in similar cases. Thus,
for instance, before we adopt the Municipal Franchise we
ought to inquire how it has worked in Municipal Elections.
To you, I suppose, that would seem quite superfluous, and
yet it is the way in which we proceed in all other questions
except Keform. In page 23 I think you assume incon-
sistencies which do not exist. Is there anything incon-
sistent in objecting to a ^7 franchise, and saying that the
working-man may attain the ;^io if he will ? Or that
people now indifferent to the Franchise may, when they
have it, use it ill ? Or that property may be swamped by
the votes of millionaires who bribe and eke out their
bribery by all kinds of humiliating pledges, just as you
see Irish Landlords ready for the sake of a seat in Parlia-
ment to advocate measures going directly to the destruction
of their own class ?

" Pray excuse these rough notes, which will show you
at any rate that I have read your essay.
" Believe me always,

" Very truly yours,

" K. Lowe."

When Household Suffrage was proposed by the
Conservative Government in the following year, Mr.
Lowe vigorously opposed it, but with far less effect.
On my noticing this contrast in conversation vpith
Mr. Gladstone, he replied, " Do you suppose it is as
easy to turn against the stream as to swim with it ? "

LORD CARDWELL 225

Mr. Cardwell, as I have already said, belonged
to an entirely opposite type. If ever there was
a Peelite, he was one, inheriting both Peel's caution
and Peel's readiness to carry out the will of " the
country," once ascertained and declared. His dis-
trust of democracy was as great as Lowe's, and
I remember his ridiculing, in 1866, the existence
of a real popular demand for Reform ; but he voted
steadily for it, and, when it was carried, he well
knew how to address large bodies of his new house-
holding constituents in the City of Oxford, which
he long represented. It may be remembered that
W. M. Thackeray was once brought forward in
opposition to him at a bye-election, but was easily
defeated, after discovering his own incapacity of
public speaking. Cardwell told me himself that,
soon after Thackeray's first visit to Oxford, he fell
in with him at the Athenaeum Club, when Thackeray
remarked : " Well, Cardwell, you know that I have
been down among your d — d constituents. Of
course, I did not expect that all of them would
have read my novels, but I certainly did expect that
most of them would have heard of me ; instead of
which, I found that the question on every one's lips
was — ' Who the devil is Thackeray ? ' " Without
being a powerful speaker, Cardwell stated a ease
with admirable clearness ; and without having the
aggressive dash which is prized in Opposition, he
was an excellent debater, and a tower of strength to
his party in office. But he knew the limits of his
own powers, and I more than suspect that, in accept-

22 6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

ing a peerage on Mr. Gladstone's retirement in 1874,
one of his chief motives was the desire to escape
all risk of the leadership in the Commons being
pressed upon him. For there was little or no love
of fight in him, or, as he once said to me, in reference
to one of Gladstone's fiery outbursts — " I suppose
we do not all know what it is to have a volcano
in one's breast." His true forte lay in the work of
administration. He was the very model of an able
and conscientious public servant, leaving a reputation
second to none both at the Colonial Office and at
the War Ofiice, where his decisive action in the
abolition of the Purchase-system astonished those
who mistook his prudence for timidity.

During the period of his rule at the Colonial Office,
and especially during the crisis of the Jamaica affair,
on which I was constantly engaged as a journalist,
I was in confidential intercourse with him, and had
many opportunities of knowing what was passing
behind the official scenes. The course which he
took from the first seemed to me singularly judicious,
and I was particularly struck by his prompt recog-
nition of the essential fact that before a certain
date nearly all the acts of the Jamaica government
were excusable, if not justifiable, but that after that
date its policy in setting up a reign of terror, by way
of giving the negroes a lesson never to be forgotten,
was absolutely and wholly indefensible. While,
however, he felt it his duty to issue a Commission,
and ultimately to supersede Governor Eyre, a single
passage from one of his letters to me suffices to show

MR. JOHN BRIGHT 227

that he was fully capable of appreciating the other
side. " It appears to me that the public is now-
beginning to remember that white people, and loyal
people, are entitled to some sympathy, as well as
rebel negroes, and that the events which occurred
in Jamaica between Wednesday 1 1 th and Sunday
15th urgently required to be repressed by the
most vigorous measures." The gradual decay of his
faculties which preceded his death, as it did that
of his old friend Lowe, was a peculiarly severe trial
for him, but he bore it patiently and with a quiet
dignity natural to him.

I never knew John Bright personally until his
time of storm and stress was over, and he had long
ceased to be the fierce tribune of the people. The
only two speeches which I heard him deliver were
at the close of the American War, and, though fine,
were not among his greatest. It has often been
denied that he made careful preparation for his
speeches, the very form of which is a conclusive
proof that he did so ; but I can only bear witness
that I saw him deliberately use notes covering eight
or ten pages of note-paper for a speech in St. James's
Hall occupying less than half an hour. He would |
have been the last to compare himself with Gladstone i
in range of knowledge and dialectical resource, but, ,
notwithstanding his lack of scholarly training, his I
best orations were superior to Gladstone's as com-
positions, and rang truer on a critical ear, if they
were read aloud. Whatever may have been his
rhetorical method, he stood almost alone in the

22 8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

political world as a master of simple but lofty

eloquence, enhanced by

"that great voice which, rising, brought
Eed wrath to faces pale with thought.
And, falUng, fell with showers of tears."

When he came to visit me at Oxford, in 1884, I
reminded him that he had described the University
as " that home of dead languages and undying pre-
judices," upon which he volunteered something very
like a recantation. No one could be pleasanter or
less exacting as a guest ; he enjoyed being shown
the historical sights of Oxford, consorted most ami-
cably with Dons, attended our College Chapel, and
gave our house-party a short resume of "Joshua
Davidson " (which he greatly admired), with so much
fervour and pathos as to reveal the secret of his
influence over large audiences. I was much gratified
by his assurance that he had twice read through my
volume, " English Land and English Landlords,"
adding, with genuine modesty, that he never could
understand the process of composing a solid book of
that kind.

A year or two later, when an honorary D.C.L.
degree was to be conferred upon him, he stayed
with Dr. Tylor. I have understood that he feared
lest a neat and appropriate speech in reply should
be expected of him, and was much relieved to
hear that it would be quite out of order. On the
other hand, some people absurdly fancied that he
might object to donning the scarlet gown of a D.C.L.
as something between a Court costume and a military

MR. JOHN BRIGHT 229

uniform — both equally repulsive to him. Instead of
which, he was said to have been so pleased with his
gorgeous robe, when he was once in it, that it was
not easy to get him out of it.

No doubt many critics, and especially those pro-
voked by his stout opposition to Home Eule, profess to
be shocked by the alleged inconsistency between his
earlier and later career. I see no such inconsistency,
except what may fairly be explained by the enlarge-
ment of his experience. Broad as his sympathies
always were, he was brought up in a narrow school of
politics and religious thought. For instance, he was
never tired of denouncing the landed aristocracy and
clergy of the Established Church as bitter enemies of
enlightenment and progress. When he came to know
them better, he found that with some faults of their re-
spective classes they combined virtues not so common
in the millowners and Nonconformists among whom
he moved, and had the candour to own his mistake.
His attitude to Home Eule was simply that of an
honest man deceived by a section of his colleagues,
and suddenly urged by his chief to adopt a policy
which the whole Liberal Party had been solemnly
repudiating, in alliance with men whom he regarded,
and did not scruple to describe, as "rebels." Very
soon after Mr. Gladstone thus sprung Home Eule
upon the country, I ventured, under great pressure
from Unionist friends, to ask Mr. Bright whether he
would accept an invitation to address the Palmerston
Club. His reply seems to me characteristic enough
to be preserved.

230 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

"Reform Club, Pall Mall, S.W.,
March 9, 1886.

"My dear Me. Brodrick, — Your two letters have
reached me.

" I shall have to ask your friends to excuse me if I am
unable to accept their proposed invitation. I am very
weary of speaking, and just now there is so much con-
fusion that I seem to feel as if not wisdom only but safety
is to be found in silence. The name of the Palmerston
Club rather amuses me — it is strange that its members
should think of my being a guest at one of its meetings.
I have just been reading Mr. Greville's Memoirs. His
account of Lord Palmerston is something very scandalous
and very shocking ; but I believe he says no more than
is true. I believe him to have been the worst Foreign
Minister that we have seen in our time, and that his
Policy generally was a continued crime against the real
interests of his country and against the peace of Europe.

" It may be that his name is but a name for the Club,
and that his Policy is forgotten, or, if remembered, only to
be condemned.

"I have quitted the platform, and no longer feel the
warm interest that is required to make me speak.

" Age comes on apace, and with it brings weariness and
desire for rest. I consider myself no longer an actor, and,
as a spectator, far less deeply or hotly interested than in
past times and in now settled questions. It is not neces-
sary that you should say to your friends all I have written.
You will thank them for me for their friendly notice and
remembrance of me.

" I thank you for your suggestion that I should spend

another Sunday at your house. I remember my former

visit with much pleasure. — Always sincerely yours,

" John Bright.
" Honble. Geo. C. Brodeick."

In the last conversation which I had with Mr.
Gladstone, though I was studiously reticent on

MR. JOHN BRIGHT 231

politics, he went so far as to deplore Bright's recent
aberrations, as he called them, which, he thought,
might be partly due to a feeling of resentment, on
Bright's part, against the ingratitude shown him by
Irish Nationalists — a remark to which I made no
reply. However this may be, Bright's convictions
on the subject of Home Rule assuredly lay very deep,
and were never shaken, though his growing sense
of failing powers disabled him from pleading the
Unionist cause, with his old vigour, on the platform.
This sense of weakness finds expression in the letter
which I have quoted, and in another letter, dated
December 6, 1887, he speaks yet more emphatically
of his own failing powers : " I am forced to resist
invitations to meetings and dinners, and to content
myself with writing a letter now and then on the
great disturbing question. I find myself much older
during this year, and 1 cannot afford to disregard
the warnings which gathering years impress upon
the mind."

Neither Mr. Chichester Fortescue, afterwards
Lord Carlingford, nor Mr. Hugh Childers, struck me
as men of quite the same calibre as those of their
colleagues whom I have specially named. Never-
theless, they were both extremely capable men,
and left their mark on the Departments over which
they presided. Without being a born Irishman, Mr.
Fortescue knew more of Ireland before taking office
than any Chief Secretary who has succeeded him.
He was for governing Ireland according to Irish ideas,
but upon strictly Unionist principles, and under

232 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

strictly Imperial control. It was he who inspired,
if he did not actually frame with legal advice, the
Irish Land Act of 1870, a measure which, though not
without blemishes, was a perfect model of far-sighted
legislation, as compared with the eminently unjust
and unstatesmanlike Act of 1881. This was his
one important contribution to Irish reform, but he
was always understood to favour the educational
claims of the Irish Catholics, when the very idea of
" concurrent endowment " was scouted by Liberals.
He was not, however, a man to force his own views
on a Cabinet or on his party, being too fastidious
and scrupulous in mind for the rough work of poli-
tics, if his physical and moral stamina had been
equal to it. Perhaps, too, he was too much the
husband of Frances, Countess of Waldegrave, to be
estimated as he deserved for his own ability, and,
soon after her death, being himself in failing health,
he practically retired from public life. Mr. Childers's
strong and weak points were very different. He
was essentially a man of business, and for this
reason was valued most highly by Gladstone, who
always seemed to be attracted by men with more
pretence to knowledge of the world than himself.
I do not presume to criticise the merit of his
administrative reforms at the Admiralty and the
War Office, but my own belief is that he was some-
what out of his element at both ; that his proper
sphere of action was at the Treasury, and that he
was rather a financier than a statesman or adminis-
trator in the highest sense. At the same time, his

MR. W. E. FORSTER 233

air of self-confidence and robust appearance con-
cealed a gentleness of nature and variety of culture
which revealed itself in private life.

Almost the same may be said of Mr. W. E. Forster,
who was not an original member of Gladstone's first
Cabinet, but filled a leading place in the Government
as Vice-President of the Education Department, and
was so well known as Chief Secretary for Ireland in
Gladstone's second Cabinet. Forster was a sturdy
Yorkshireman, of stalwart build, and simple Quaker
manners which sometimes verged upon rudeness, but
with a warm heart, a truly religious character, and
a single-minded zeal for the public good. Having
long been known as a man of exceptional energy in
his own county, he came into notice in the House
of Commons as a staunch adherent of the Unionist
cause during the American Civil War, and then
passed for a thorough-going Eadical. As Minister
of Education, however, he showed an unexpected
capacity of conciliating opponents, and (it must be
added) of irritating extremists on his own side
of the House. The fact is that he was determined
to carry a comprehensive Education Act, and that he
measured both the forces wielded by the champions
of Voluntary Schools, and the services which they
were capable of rendering to a National system of
Education, more justly than most of his implacable
critics. I remember his saying (before the Fenian
convicts were released) that Gladstone and himself
were both hampered in their legislative efibrts by
the action of their extreme Left Wing, but he added,

234 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

with a sly look, " Gladstone has this advantage over
me, that many of his Extreme Left are in prison."
In his Irish policy, he laboured under the fatal
delusion, shared by other Liberal optimists ignorant
of Irish history, that large doses of remedial legis-
lation, as prescribed by well-meaning English states-
men, would suffice to cure the unrest, discontent,
and love of anarchy, which have been the curse of
Ireland for so many centuries. The inevitable
failure of this treatment shocked and distressed
him ; he knew too much of the country to adopt
Bright's reckless dictum that " force is no remedy,"
but the method of applying force under the Coercion
Act on which he relied proved almost abortive, and
the "Kilmainham Treaty" closed his Irish Adminis-
tration. While less than justice has been done to
Forster in regard to some others of his public acts,
more than justice has been done to him in regard
to this untoward transaction. Unhappily, it is not
the fact that he indignantly rejected the proposal to
enter into any negotiations with Parnell, then in
Kilmainham jail. On the contrary, these negotia-
tions were expressly sanctioned by him, and he
broke away from the Government, not because they
ended in an agreement, fairly described as a Treaty,
but rather because this unworthy Treaty was not
sufficiently formal and effective. Meanwhile, he
was perfectly unconscious of the murderous con-
spiracy which dogged his footsteps daily, and I have
myself taken a walk of some length with him in
the Phoenix Park, after dark, unarmed, and with-

MR. GLADSTONE 235

out escort or attendance, at a time when, as it
was afterwards shown by evidence, assassins were
constantly lying in wait for him.

Lord Selborne, as is well known, did not enter
Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet until after the settlement of
the Irish Church question. His admirable character
and unblemished career are faithfully portrayed in
his Memoirs. His extraordinary success at the Bar,
and his conscientious distribution of judicial patron-
age, will long be remembered by his own profession.
His transcendent powers of work almost amounted to
genius, and as they have probably never been equalled
by any lawyer of our own day who remained in
practice for an equal time, I could wish that more
instances of his dialectical resource and physical
endurance had been recorded in the materials which
he left for publication. He was said to be rather
supercilious in his consultations with juniors, and
his bearing on two Commissions of which I was a
member enables me to understand this complaint,
but I have reason to speak gratefully of his kindness
and consideration during thirty or forty years of
private friendship.

My knowledge of Mr. Gladstone himself dated
from his visit to Oxford in 1855, when he took kindly
notice of my Prize Essay on Eepresentative Govern-
ment. In 1859, I was one of three Secretaries of his
London Committee during his contest for the Uni-
versity of Oxford, and, owing to my two co-secretaries
being more or less disabled, I had to pull the labour-
ing oar on the Committee for some days together.

236 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Again, in 1865, I rendered as much service on his
Committee as my journalistic duties allowed. In
these and other ways I came into frequent contact
with him ; he was fully cognisant of my Parliamentary
ambition, and he did me the honour to give me a
general invitation to his Thursday morning break-
fasts — a privilege of which I availed myself yearly
for many years. These breakfasts were an institution
of long standing, and took place on Thursdays after
Easter during the rest of the Session. Besides Mr.
Gladstone's own family, there were probably one or
two old friends who might come in without notice,
other guests were specially invited for the occasion,
but younger men like myself who had the entree
wrote beforehand to ascertain which Thursday would
best suit his convenience. The party was almost
always a mixed one, and there was no visible attempt
to harmonise its elements, yet it always seemed to
be well assorted, and Mr. Gladstone could hardly be
seen to better advantage. It was impossible not to
treat so illustrious a man without a certain deference,
but he never exacted it, and though all were naturally
anxious to draw him out in talk, I never observed in
him the least tendency to monopolise conversation.
On the contrary, he eagerly took up any topic started
by others, showed a courteous respect for differences
of opinion, and accepted the rule of " give and take "
in discussion, as if unconscious of any superiority.

It happened that more than once, when I break-
fasted with him, a political crisis was impending
which might well have engrossed his mind, but he

MR. GLADSTONE 237

betrayed no sign of care or anxiety ; and lie was
equally cheerful and natural when I rode with him
in the Park just before one of his Budget speeches,
about which he talked without much reserve. I think
it was on this occasion that he spoke of Sir Eobert
Peel as having never quite shaken off the fear of a
Protectionist reaction, or definitely pledged himself
not to resume office. It has often been said that he
was deficient in the sense of humour, and it must be
admitted that he sometimes missed fire in sallies
intended to be humorous, and sometimes failed to
catch the humours of his audience. But he certainly
was not incapable of seeing himself as others saw
him ; on the contrary, he keenly entered into the
spirit of the random attacks to which he was always
exposed. He may have enjoyed being treated as a
demigod, but he could laugh heartily at being treated
as a lion ; and he once told me, with a full sense of
its comical aspect, that he had received an invitation
from an eminent American to visit the United States
upon a guarantee of £250 a night.

What he may have been in official relations I
have no means of judging, but I shall always bear
witness that in his own house I found him entirely
free from " donnishness," never overbearing, and far
more genial in his intercourse with myself than two
or three of his less eminent colleagues, whom I knew
more intimately. I was equally struck with this
characteristic when he kindly came to call upon me
during his visit to Oxford en garqon in 1891, and
when I went to call upon him at Hawarden the year

238 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

but one before his death. He was, of course, well
aware that I had most strongly condemned his Irish
policy, and had long ceased to be one of his followers ;
but his manner was as cordial as ever, and he talked
as freely about matters of common interest — not ex-
cluding politics altogether — as if no such gulf yawned
between us. Since he has been popularly canonised, all
the world professes the same absolute confidence in the
goodness of his private character which I, for one,
never lost or disguised ; but I cannot forget that, in
past times, even this was sometimes made the sport
of malicious gossip by men who now adulate his
memory.

My estimate of his public character is essentially
the same as that lately published by Mr. Lecky, as
well as that embodied in Lord Selborne's Memoirs,
and this is not the place to justify it. I may, how-
ever, say that, with the fullest appreciation of his
marvellous gifts, I had never for a moment looked
up to him as a sound Liberal or a far-sighted states-
man. In short, I never was a Gladstonian. I had
myself adopted the Liberal creed under other auspices,
in 1852 ; and from the moment that he joined the
Liberal camp, as a somewhat intractable recruit, in
1853, I was often out of sympathy with his political
conduct, and still more often with the reasons by
which he defended it. For instance, having stoutly
opposed the University Test Bill, he once took me
aside after a breakfast-party, and asked me how far
the Oxford Reformers were determined to go. I told
him that we only desired all degrees (except in

MR. GLADSTONE 239

Theology) and all such Academical emoluments as
Fellowships or Scholarships, to be thrown open to
students without distinction of creed. His reply
was : " Well, I admit that some day you will get it,
but we shall all be cold in our graves before you do."
When his own Government, within a very few years,
carried a measure conceding, in effect, all that had
been demanded, I was enabled to measure the value
of his political sagacity. Still, in common with all
Liberals, I accepted him as a necessary leader of the
Liberal Party, and when he was known to intend
retiring from that position at the end of 1874, 1
complied with a request that I would draw up a
memorial, afterwards signed by many Liberal members
of Parliament, begging him to reconsider his decision.
But, if I had ever felt any confidence in his judgment
or true statesmanship, it would have been finally
shattered by his passionate and one-sided agitation
on the so-called Bulgarian atrocities. To invoke a
plebiscite on a most difficult and complicated question
of foreign policy — to consult, as an oracle, great mass-
meetings of people who could not have pointed to
Bulgaria on the map, and were childishly ignorant
of its history and condition — to parade before Europe
(including Kussia) the resolutions passed by these
meetings at the dictation of wire-pullers, as if they
were the deliberate conclusions of the national intel-
ligence and conscience — to repudiate with scorn any
treaty rights pleaded by Turkey, yet to insist with the
implacable hate of Shylock on any treaty rights urged I
against Turkey — all this seemed to me so appalling]

240 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

an exhibition of unwisdom and injustice that, having
always mistrusted Gladstone as a guide, I ceased
thenceforth to regard him even as my leader.

I was, therefore, less surprised than many
Liberals when he suddenly turned round on his
former declarations, and announced his conversion
to Home Eule. The motive of this conversion was
self-evident, but I must say, in fairness to him,
that I believe his mind had been long tending in
the direction of Home Rule, as that of Sir Robert
Peel had been long gravitating towards a Repeal
of the Corn Laws. He never met the Home Rule
motions of Mr. Butt with a direct refusal to dis-
member the United Kingdom, but only with a protest
against being asked to accept so wide-reaching a
principle without having seen it embodied in a
working scheme. One slight incident confirmed my
suspicion that he was beginning to harbour the
idea in the summer of 1885, when I was starting
for a voyage to the Norwegian Fiords. On hearing
that I was bound for Norway, Gladstone earnestly
counselled me to make a careful study of the
constitutional union of that country with Sweden,
already more or less shaken, and I could not but
see that he was himself meditating on this favourite
(but very unfortunate) example of Home Rule, on
which he and others afterwards laid so much stress.
I had very few opportunities, however, of talking
politics with him, and, when I did so, I was favour-
ably impressed by his candour. Thus, I once
ventured to draw him out on the famous letter in

MR. GLADSTONE 241

which he declared the destruction of the Irish
Church to be outside the sphere of practical politics,
when his seat at Oxford was in danger, and only
three years before he led a crusade against that
Church as established by law. Instead of seeking
to evade responsibility for his own words, he quoted
another emphatic declaration of his to the same
purpose, but minimised its effect by assuring me
that he then regarded the question as one reserved
for a somewhat remote future. He did not explain
who, or what, had forced it into immediate and
exclusive prominence.

Again, in 1874, when I was about to write a
pamphlet entitled " Five Years of Liberal Policy
and Conservative Opposition," I had a long con-
versation with him, in which I sought to elicit the
general plan of campaign which he proposed to
himself on taking office at the end of 1868. My
own notion had been that, finding many arrears of
legislation awaiting him, after a long period of
comparative inaction, he had consciously mapped
out a series of reforms, beginning with the abolition
of the Irish Church, to be accomplished, in due
order, during his term of administration. This
notion he entirely dispelled, stating frankly that
he came in to disestablish the Irish Church, without
any very definite conception of further measures
to be introduced, but had utilised his surplus of
Parliamentary energy for the Irish Land Bill, the
Education Bill, and other legislative tasks. In
criticising the conduct of the Opposition, as in

Q

242 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

some cases unpatriotic, he recalled the fact of
having been himself rebuked by Sir Eobert Peel
for voting with O'Connell on some trifling issue
raised to damage the Whigs. This kind of liaison
Peel condemned as inconsistent with the higher
traditions of English politics — little foreseeing on
how grand a scale it would be repeated by the very
statesman who then bowed to his admonitions.
During the same interview, Gladstone specially
charged me to acknowledge the patriotic attitude
of Disraeli on the relations of Great Britain with
the United States, and, on reading my pamphlet,
gave me credit for having done so, apparently
forgetting that it was his own suggestion. The
letter which I received from him on this occasion
is a good specimen of his ordinary conversation
on the new Conservatism.

"21 Carlton House Terrace, S.W.,
July 23, 1874.

" My dear Mr. Brodrick,

" I received your pamphlet this morning, and
I must lose no time in thanking you for it. There was
certainly a great gap : you have completely filled it by a
masterly performance. I am truly sorry to say that, in
my judgment, much the most needful, much the most
valuable part of it (though all was needful and all valuable),
is the section from p. 3 1 to the end. Nothing in the re-
cent services of Liberalism is, in my judgment, comparable,
as to importance, with the demoralisation now naturalised
in Parhament by the Conservative Oppositions of the last
twenty-five years. It wiU be long before the results are
neutrahsed.

" I, who lived and worked under Peel, have groaned

MR. GLADSTONE 243

from week to week at the unseen, unfelt degradation of
a great party, as well as the mischief thereby inflicted on
the public interests. I can see now, on looking back on
the old Conservative Opposition, honest errors of opinion,
but no cause for shame. These disclosures are sad ; sores
of such a kind it is painful to lay bare, and this the most
painful part of your task is, I must again say, the most
valuable. I am truly glad that the grand exception, Mr.
Disraeli's conduct in the American question, did not
escape you. — Yours sincerely,

" W. E. Gladstone."

I do not remember his mentioning Disraeli in
my presence on any other occasion, except once,
when he spoke of him as the most remarkable
Parliamentary phenomenon since the younger Pitt.
Nor did I ever hear him indulge in bitter outbreaks
against any of his opponents ; indeed, if I judged
from my own observation, I should describe Glad-
stone as much less impulsive than he was usually
represented. Excitable he certainly was, to all
appearance, but there was a great deal of method
in his excitement, and I see no reason to suppose
that it sprung from a peculiarly sensitive tempera-
ment. On the contrary, I believe that few public
men have ever possessed a tougher nervous fibre,
or cultivated more perfect self-command, and I
have always recognised his success in organising and
disciplining his own powers of intellect and of
character as one of his signal virtues, and as one
chief secret of his greatness. Nor was he less
careful and successful in managing his physical
health. Judging from his somewhat pallid com-

244 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

plexion and the deep lines upon his noble counte-
nance, most people fancied that he was a delicate
man, whereas he was a man of great natural
strength, which he skilfully trained and husbanded.
In youth he was remarkable as a walker, and, when
he was past middle age, he made an expedition on
foot in Scotland which a young sportsman might
well have regarded as a tour de force. At one
time he used to ride frequently, at another time
he would row, and during his later years, until old
age fairly disabled him, he regularly practised the
felling of trees as an athletic exercise. He once
told me that he regarded this as a very trying
exercise for a man with any weakness of the heart ',
and on another occasion, not long before his death,
he mentioned incidentally that, until his eyesight
failed, he had placed all, or nearly all, the books in
St. Deiniol's Library on their shelves with his own
hands. So unsparing was he of his own labour in
everything small or great.

There was a time when I thought that most of
\ the inconsistencies and aberrations of his career might
; be explained by a strange dualism in his nature,
' resulting from the rare alliance of a simple character
■ with a subtle and sophistical intellect. Perhaps,
as I look back over the last period of his life, I am
more impressed by the latter than by the former
attribute ; still, however tortuous may have been
the mazes of his mind, and, however indefensible
many of his actions, I cannot think of him other-
wise than as a true-hearted man, nor should I

MR. GLADSTONE 245

strongly protest against the application to him of
the lines quoted to me by one of his admirers —

" The loftiest spirits in their wildest motion
Dip to their anchors deep beneath the ocean."

I cannot, however, share Mr. Lecky's extremely
high estimate of his eloquence, supported though it
is by general acclamation. It is true I never heard
him at his best in the House of Commons, as, for
instance, in one of his great replies, but I was dis-
appointed by his expository speeches in introducing
the Eeform Bill of 1866, the Irish Land Bill of 1870,
and the Irish University Bill of 1873. ^^ ^^^ whole,
I consider his speech against the Divorce Bill the
finest of those which I heard him deliver, and
very few of his speeches which I have read seemed
to me to reach so high a level of oratory. No one
else could have poured forth such torrents of rhetoric
as he did in the agitation against the Bulgarian
atrocities or in his Midlothian campaigns ; but not
one of those impetuous speeches, flung oflf at a white
heat, would bear studying as a model of eloquence.
To me he was a great dialectician rather than a great
orator, marvellously skilful in reply, but seldom
moving either my judgment or my feelings, partly
because he so often failed (as I thought) to see a
subject in its true proportions, and partly because
the sentiments which most came home to him so
often met with little response in me. But I admit
that he will be immortalised as a great orator by a
verdict of public opinion, against which there is

246 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

no appeal. This verdict mainly rests on platform

speeches made during the last half of his political

life. Until the death of Lord Palmerston, in 1865,

Gladstone was scarcely known as a popular speaker,

'■ much less as a demagogue, though he had long been

: admired as a Parliamentary debater of the very first

j order. It was his defeat at Oxford in that year, the

! Reform movement of 1866-67, and the attack on the

j Irish Church in 1868, which revealed his capacity

1 for swaying great audiences, and his love of demo-

; cratic applause.

Whether the services which he rendered to his
country in the earlier part of his life outweighed
the irreparable injury which he wrought in the
later part of it, is a question on which I forbear to
enter. What is certain is that, whether or not he
was a great statesman, he was by far the greatest
member of Parliament in our national history, and
that, whatever the quality of his work, its quantity
' far surpassed that produced by any one of his con-
temporaries. Whether for good or evil, the silent
influence of his towering personality and example has
impressed itself deeply on the rising generation, and
even the few pre-Gladstonian Liberals who followed
Gladstone in 1886 must be conscious of a wide differ-
ence in sentiment between themselves and those for
whom Gladstone was the author of their political
faith.

It might be supposed that, having written so
much for the Press, I must needs have lived much
in literary circles, and stored up many personal

MR. JOHN STUART MILL 247

anecdotes of literary men. This, however, is not
the fact. I worked, for the most part, alone ; my
own productions were political rather than literary ;
I never sought admission to select clubs or coteries
frequented by litterateurs; while a certain indepen-
dence of character, perhaps carried to excess, has
always prevented me from making advances to
"celebrities" in conversation, and noting down their
flashes of wit. Still, no one with literary tastes can
have moved for many years in general society, or en-
joyed the privileges of friendship with eminent men
of letters, without carrying away a few reminiscences
of more or less interest. And here, perhaps, I ought
to say that I have never known any one to whom
I could attribute "genius," if by "genius" is meant
an intellectual power of a different order from that
bestowed on other men. I see no reason to believe
that differences of intellectual stature are greater
than differences of physical stature, and, so far as I
have observed, the main superiority of a man like
Gladstone over his fellows consists in the combina-
tion of several qualities, not in themselves excep-
tional, and the energy of will displayed in the use
of them. Probably John Stuart Mill was one of the
ablest men that I have known, and, if his memories
of early boyhood can be trusted, his precocity must
have nearly approached to genius. What chiefly struck
me in him was not so much any special brilliancy as
his calm earnestness, his masterly facility in moving
from subject to subject, his conscientious way of
measuring his words, and his respectful attention to

248 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

what others might say — a quality which he shared
with " George Eliot." He was in the chair when
Mr. Goldwin Smith delivered a lecture at Manchester
on the period of the French Eevolution, and con-
demned its leaders in very sweeping terms, against
which Mill felt himself bound to protest, in replying
to a vote of thanks, and, in so doing, he showed a
range of historical knowledge which astonished the
audience. It is well known that, after the Hyde
Park Eiots, when there was a serious risk of organ-
ised violence on a much larger scale, it was Mill's
earnest and moderate counsels which averted it ; and
though his sympathies were altogether with the
popular demonstration, he said, in my presence, that
had it been carried to a certain point, it would have
been quite justifiable to fire on the people. On a far
less important occasion, I myself had a proof of his
thoughtful consideration, when I had been addressing
an impatient audience under great difficulties and with
little success ; for Mill promptly came forward and
thanked me for my speech. His election for West-
minster in 1865 was an almost unique instance of a
candidate being taken on trust by a popular con-
stituency on the strength of his intellectual reputa-
tion. Of course, it is often stated that he was a
" failure in the House," but Mr. Gladstone's testi-
mony to the contrary is conclusive. Considering
that he had no rhetorical gift whatever, that he
entered Parliament as an elderly man, that he never
studied to please the House in the smallest degree,
and that he remained in it for three or four years

ARCHBISHOPS TAIT AND MAGEE 249

only, the wonder is that he struck out a new line in I
several memorable debates, and was always heard i
with respect.

Partly owing to my father's position in the
Church, and partly to accidental circumstances, I
came to know personally many great ecclesiastics
of the Queen's reign, including all the Archbishops
of Canterbury since Archbishop Howley. Amon g
these, I should not hesitate to place Archbishop
Tait first, as a statesman. It was he who proposed
to Dean Tremantle (then his chaplain) and myself
the publication of the "Ecclesiastical Judgments
of the Privy Council," with a view of showing how
wisely that maligned tribunal had ever held the
balance even between extreme opinions on either
side, always leaning in the direction of liberty.
For, as the Archbishop often said, had they decided
otherwise in the Gorham case, the Denison case, and
the case of Essays and Reviews, the result might
have been three secessions, carrying away many
of the most zealous clergymen in the Church of
England, and leaving nothing but a high and dry
residuum, hardly worth preservation. What he
would have thought of the present crisis it is need-
less to inquire, but it is worth remembering that
Bishop Philpotts of Exeter (whom I have met in Mr. '
Gladstone's house), being the foremost champion of i';
High Church doctrines, was strongly opposed to \
Ritualistic practices. I can recollect Bishop Magee
(afterwards Archbishop of York) in all the stages
of his remarkable career. He began as a curate

250 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

at Bath, first became famous as a preacher at the
Octagon Chapel in Bath, and thenceforth was marked
out for rapid promotion. Though I often met him,
and received him in my own house when he came
to preach at Oxford, I scarcely realised how clever
or how imprudent he was until I read his published
Letters, in which so little reticence is observed. He
was certainly one of the best speakers that I ever
heard, having cultivated to perfection the art of
preparing ideas and sentences exactly suitable to
oral delivery, and of delivering the matter thus
prepared exactly as if it was rising spontaneously to
his lips.

I think Bishop (Samuel) Wilberforce, whom I
knew less intimately, was a greater orator by nature,
and equal, if not superior, to Gladstone himself in
speaking impromptu with effect ; but his sermons
were not reasoned out as closely as Magee's. Another
great Churchman, whose acquaintance I made in
the later part of his life, was Cardinal Manning.
He was for a short time a Fellow of Merton, and
1 was rather startled one day when he was ushered
into my room together with Jowett, the Master of
Balliol, whom in earlier years he might have will-
ingly consigned to the stake. I always found him
, most courteous and friendly ; but I cannot say that I
was surprised by the disclosure of his inconsistencies
contained in his Memoirs. Indeed, when he lent his
authority to Socialistic demands, doubtless in the
interest of his Church, I could not reconcile his
action with the language which he used to me, in

DEAN STANLEY 251

asking me to send him two anti- Socialistic articles of
my own which had lately appeared in the Nine-
teenth Century. His reply acknowledging them con-
tained the following mysterious phrase : " Socialism
is to social laws what Rationalism is to reason — a
disease, and a morbid growth."

Like all his friends — and few men had more — I
was greatly attracted by the simple and beautiful
character of Dean Stanley ; and I often blame myself
for not having more fully used my opportunities
of intercourse with him. Our acquaintance, which
had begun earlier, was revived by my review of his
" Sinai and Palestine," for which he often expressed
gratitude, as if the book had really needed any such
recommendation. Fearless and chivalrous as he was
in the maintenance of his convictions, and still more
in defence of his friends, Stanley had true humility,
and would speak of himself with a charming naivetS.
Huxley once asked him in my presence whether
he knew and could say off the multiplication table.
(Stanley at once admitted that he could not, explain-
ing that he had formerly learned it, but had forgotten
it. He was as pleased as a child at having delivered
a more elaborate speech in Convocation than he
thought himself capable of producing, and never
shrunk from discussing any subject without reserve
— at least with any one whom he trusted. He was
puzzled to understand why all the forces of ortho-
doxy should have been concentrated against the
authors of Essays and Reviews, while he himself,
who had been equally bold in Biblical criticism, was

252 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

left unscathed, except by the futile attempt to
exclude him from the University pulpit at Oxford.
I The only explanation which occurred to him was,
that he was supposed to be under Eoyal protection,
|; and I am by no means sure that this was not the
true explanation. But he was, above all, an anti-
sacerdotalist and an Erastian, though with too much
reverence for antiquity and ecclesiastical pomp not
to sympathise with the opposite view. Thus, he
delighted to trace out the lowly and prosaic origin
of costumes and ceremonies now invested with a
superstitious halo of sanctity, while his ideal of the
relation between Church and State was concisely
expressed in an off-hand hon mot during a conversa-
tion with myself and a friend on a railway journey
between Oxford and London. Stanley had been
' ridiculing the habit of personifying the Church as a
I woman, and speaking of it tenderly as she, when
; a sudden thought struck him, and he added, " Well,
! I should not mind it so much if they would only
( speak of the State as " he." Here we have the
Erastian creed in a nutshell.

The names of Froude and Freeman are so often
coupled together by historical critics of opposite
schools, without any personal knowledge of either,
that a few words of appreciation from one who
had a personal knowledge of both may not be
considered presumptuous. No one can deny that
Freeman's standard of accuracy was higher, or that
he made, on the whole, more solid contributions to
history. In his early Oxford days, he deliberately

PROFESSOR FREEMAN 253

selected historical research as the labour of his life ;
he pursued it with amazing and lifelong industry,
under favourable conditions ; he ranged over the
whole field of history, ancient and modern, English
and foreign ; and his voluminous works, if collected,
would exceed, both in mass and weight, those of any
modern English historian. His " General Sketch of
European History," the first volume of an " Historical
Course for Schools," is an admirable summary of its
subject, and shows how dispassionate he could be as
a teacher. On the other hand, he bristled with pre-
judices, he displayed violent partisanship in treating
of contemporary politics, and he was not only a
truculent but an unscrupulous controversialist, hunt-
ing down his literary enemies in periodical articles,
and refusing to see either any merit in those whom
he had once condemned, or any defect in those
whom he had once admired. Happily for me, I was
reckoned among his friends, and retain several racy
letters from him, out of which, however, I found it
impossible to select one suitable for insertion in his
Memoirs, since they all contained sallies against some
one whom he despised. Yet his bark was worse than
his bite, and he was essentially a kind-hearted man.
When I stood for Woodstock in 1868, he was stand-
ing for Mid-Somerset, and I remember one of his
speeches concluding with a grand historical perora-
tion, in which he appealed to the memories of Kirke's
" Lambs," and the Bloody Assize, by way of rousing
the Somersetshire rustics against Tory domination.
He was unequally yoked with a colleague whose

2 54 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

style of speaking was very diflferent, and seemed to
Freeman beneath the dignity of history. But when
he proceeded to give a specimen of it, I cannot say
that I thought it showed any want of electioneering
resource. At a meeting held at Wells, Freeman's
colleague had been dwelling upon the benefits to be
expected from a Liberal Government, when a work-
ing-class voter at the end of the room called out,
"And what are you going to do for the poor
man ? " Freeman was shrewd enough to feel
relieved that, not being on his legs, he was not
expected to answer such a question, but the speaker,
nothing daunted, replied after a short pause, that
" when Mr. Gladstone came into ofiice, with a good
strong Liberal majority at his back, he trusted and
believed that there would be very few poor men."
In the course of this campaign, he and his col-
league had the hardihood to face a Tory stronghold
at Wedmore — a place well known for the peace signed
there in the days of King Alfred. Here they found
themselves in a hornet's nest, and, being driven into
opposite corners of a large room, were in some danger
of personal violence, until they were rescued by the
vigorous intervention of a popular Tory doctor.
They drove off under a shower of " election-eggs,"
the marks of which remained on Freeman's carriage
when I stayed with him, for he would not have them
washed off.

It was by a strange coincidence that Froude
succeeded Freeman as Regius Professor of Modern
History at Oxford, having an entirely different

PROFESSOR FROUDE 255

conception of history, and a temperament the very
reverse of his predecessor's. I am by no means pre-
pared to claim for him a just view of historical pro-
portion, or even a truly impartial mind, but I believe
that his moral aims and sense of duty to his vocation /
were as high as Freeman's, while his transparent [
style and picturesque eloquence have secured to him
a foremost place among the prose writers of our age.
In my opinion, he was singularly deficient in the
lawyerlike virtue of weighing evidence, and started
from an obviously false principle, when he treated
State papers and preambles of Statutes, drawn up
almost under the eyes of Henry VIII., as the most
trustworthy materials for the reign of his favourite
monarch. Still, it is fair to say that Froude con-
sulted, more or less thoroughly, original MS. docu-
ments ; whereas Freeman, perhaps rightly, thought
it a waste of time for an historian to grub in palaeo-
graphy, while he studied, with the utmost care, the
numerous volumes of ancient records printed by the
EoUs Office. If Froude was inferior to Freeman in
knowledge and insight — if his view of historical
method and historical truth was less sound — it was
not for want of an equally genuine passion for
history ; and it must be confessed that, as Professor,
he took more pains than Freeman to make his lec-
tures interesting and useful to students. In his ^.
bearing towards opponents, he compared most favour-
ably with Freeman ; he was always the gentleman, i
never returned railing for railing, and was content to |
let the critics answer each other. I read with much

256 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

pleasure the sympathetic appreciation of him in
Professor Max Miiller's "Auld Lang Syne." Few
knew him so well as Miiller, and his character, as
there portrayed, tallies closely with the results of
my own intercourse with him. When I stayed with
him in his beautiful seaside villa at Salcombe, about
a year before his death, I never heard him speak
bitterly of any one ; he was the kindliest of hosts,
and the gentleness of his nature showed itself in his
relations with all about him. His love of the sea
was quite remarkable, and, so far as I could judge
from a short trip in his little yacht, his knowledge
of seamanship was very considerable for an amateur
sailor.

Being ignorant of Natural Science, I have known
few men of great scientific eminence, with the excep-
tion of one or two still living. I was, however,
on the most friendly terms with Tyndall, who
came to settle and spent the last years of his
life at Hindhead, within seven miles of Peper
Harow, our family place. There was something very
attractive in his character, and inspiring in his con-
versation, which enabled me to understand his mar-
vellous success in lecturing ; but he seemed to me too
impulsive and sensitive, if not prejudiced, to be an
ideal man of science. It was otherwise with Huxley,
whom I knew far more intimately, and whose feel-
ings, however strong, were habitually subjected to
his reason. Soon after his death, I was requested, at
very short notice, to write a few " Personal Eemini-
scences" of him for the Fortnightly Review. As

PROFESSOR HUXLEY 257

many knew him far better than I did, and T was
perfectly incompetent to pass any judgment on his
scientific life-work, I felt much difficulty in comply-
ing. Still, as he left very definite impressions on my
mind, and as any definite impressions of so remark-
able a man are perhaps not wholly unworthy of
record, I did contribute a little paper to the Fort-
nightly Review of August 1895, and will not apolo-
gise for reproducing the greater part of it.

" It must now be above thirty-seven years since I first
made the acquaintance of Huxley by correspondence.
The first Oxford University Commission had appropriated
several Fellowships of Merton College to the foundation of
a Liaacre Professorship of Physiology, coupled with Human
and Comparative Anatomy — ^for these branches of Biology
had not yet been specialised and differentiated in the Uni-
versity hierarchy of Professors. I was then a junior Fellow
of no great influence, but it was intimated to me by a com-
mon friend that Mr. T. H. Huxley meditated becoming a
candidate for the Chair, and wished for some preliminary
information about it. I confess that, although I already
knew the name of Owen, I had never heard that of Huxley,
but I successfully concealed my ignorance of his fame, and
several letters passed between us upon the expediency of
constituting the Professorship, and appointing a Professor,
before the endowment could be completed by the suppres-
sion of sufficient Fellowships. I was struck by the decided
tone of Huxley's letters, and gradually learned something
of his eminence ; but a year or two elapsed before the elec-
tion took place, and in the meantime Huxley made up his
mind not to seek the office, which was awarded to the late
Professor RoUeston. The reason which he assigned was
that his opinions were too little in harmony with those
prevalent at Oxford, and I am convinced that this was
really one of his chief motives for declining the candida-

K

258 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

ture, but it is probable that he was also unwilling to aban-
don the great position which by that time he had gained in
London. More than twenty years later, when Professor
RoUeston died, I was myself requested, as Warden of Mer-
ton, to sound Huxley upon his willingness to accept the
Chair, but he felt that he could no longer entertain
the idea of beginning a new career, and he did not fail
to repeat, though with diminished emphasis, his belief
that he would be out of his element in the Oxford atmos-
phere.

" During my own residence in London, between 1857 and
1 88 1, 1 came to know and appreciate Huxley as a friend,
often meeting him in private society, at the Athenaeum
Club and elsewhere. I was afterwards his colleague on
the governing body of Eton College, where he stoutly
advocated the educational claims of natural science, as he
was bound to do, but earned general respect, as he always
did, by the fairness and moderation of his practical views.
When he retired to live at Eastbourne, he resigned this
with other public duties, and more than once declined my
invitation to Oxford, chiefly, I think, because he dreaded
being drawn into lively discussions likely to aggravate his
tendency to sleeplessness. He appeared, indeed, at the
funeral of Professor Jowett, the late Master of Balliol ; but
when he delivered the Romanes Lecture in 1893, his want
of nervous power was evident, and he told me that it was
long before he recovered from the effects of that effort.
However, when the British Association met at Oxford in
August 1894, he was persuaded to come with Mrs. Huxley
and occupy a quiet room carefully selected for him. On
this occasion he gave a proof of the good sense and kindly
feeling which seldom deserted him. It happened that he
had just been thrown into sharp antagonism, upon a
question affecting University education in London, with
the Marquis of Salisbury, the President of the Association
and Chancellor of Oxford. Hearing that he would probably
be requested to move or second a vote of thanks to Lord

PROFESSOR HUXLEY 259

Salisbury for his Presidential address, Huxley was greatly
perturbed, and expressed to me serious doubts as to wbether
lie should or could undertake such a task. I took care
not to communicate any such doubts to the Executive
Committee, lest they should make a change in their
programme, and my reticence was rewarded. On recon-
sidering the matter, Huxley saw that he ought to under-
take the part entrusted to him ; he did so with the best
possible grace, and his reception in the Sheldonian Theatre
was such as must not only have reminded him of old
times and his duel with Bishop Wilberforce, but must
also have satisfied him that old times and old prejudices
had passed away. While he was in my house he seemed in
the best possible spirits, but he felt unequal to staying
until the end of the Association meeting, and I saw him
but once again. This was at the beginning of January
1895, when I was at Brighton, and, fearing that his tenure
of life was growing precarious, I went over for a few hours
to visit him at Eastbourne. He exhibited no trace of
faihng powers, talking as freely and cheerfully as ever;
and I left him with renewed faith in his vitality. It was
either just before or just after this visit that he gave me
a copy of his " Collected Essays," and certainly, until I
looked through volume after volume of these, I had never
realised the extent or variety of his intellectual range and
literary ability.

" To me his whole nature, intellectual and moral, pre-
sented a singular unity ; both elements appeared to be in
perfect harmony with each other, and the distinctive note
of both was the combination of strength with simplicity.
From this source was derived the manly dignity of his
beariag, the uncompromising directness of his thought,
and the enviable lucidity of his style. No subtle analysis
is needed to explain his character, the beauty of which
consisted in being completely natural, and much that he
says of David Hume, in one of his Essays, might be applied
with equal justice to himself. He possessed in a high

26o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

degree that rare but open secret to which General Gordon
owed so much of his marvellous influence ; he was always
himself, the same to young and to old, to rich and to poor,
to men and to women, and, had his lot been cast like
Gordon's in Asia or in Africa, he would doubtless have
been the same to Orientals as to Europeans. He was
frank, because he was fearless ; he inspired confidence,
because he was evidently a true-hearted man ; his native
self-respect was set off by a respectful manner towards
others; his intolerance of sophistry sometimes betrayed
him into undue vehemence in controversial writing, but
there was no pettiness in his odium scientificwm, and a
pure love of truth shone through all his most trenchant
diatribes, political or theological. As I shared most of his
convictions on politics, we talked over such questions
without reserve ; but I forbore, and never had occasion,
to discuss with him questions concerning rehgious doctrine.
I have, therefore, no right to speak from personal know-
ledge of his attitude towards them. I cannot doubt,
however, that whatever his creed, his inner life was that
of a good Christian, and that his hopes went beyond his
beliefs, though he was too honest to mistake hopes for
beliefs or beliefs for demonstrations. Assuredly, with all
his apparent leaning to materialism, and rigorous avoid-
ance of sentiment in reasoning, he inherited and even
cultivated the precious gift of philosophical imagination.
Of him, as truly as of Lyell, it might be said, in the
picturesque language of Dean Stanley, that he chose for
himself, and courageously pursued, that perilous and lofty
path which the vulture's eye hath not seen nor the lion's
whelp hath trodden — the path which leads upward from
ascertained facts and inferences miscalled 'laws' into the
sublimer regions of speculation, where the mysteries of
Theology, Metaphysics, and Natural Science mingle and
lose themselves, it may be, in the dim confessions of
Agnosticism, or, it may be, in the dim aspirations of
Faith."

SOME LITERARY CHARACTERS 261

I have already said that 1 moved but little in
literary circles, and shall not dwell on my personal
reminiscences of men eminent in literature, because
they are too slight to be worthy of preservation in
these days when memoirs and obituary notices are
so lavishly multiplied. I could wish, however, that
obituary notices of men in the second rank of eminence
were sometimes expanded into short memoirs, and a
volume compiled out of them on the principle of Dean
Burgon's "Twelve Good Men," not one of whom
would have deserved a biography to himself. I had
several opportunities of meeting Tennyson at his
own house on Blackdown and elsewhere, and always
found him gracious, but I had no adequate means of
estimating his great intellectual powers. I often saw
Browning at the Athenaeum Club, and he was always
so friendly with me that I regret having generally
failed to draw him out in conversation, partly because
I was secretly conscious of being out of sympathy ■
with his poetry. Abraham Hayward and J. A.
Kinglake were members of the same group, and often
dined together with one or two other chosen associates
in Theodore Hook's corner of the Athenaeum dining-
room. I was rarely invited to join the party, but,
when I did, I was always edified by the variety of
knowledge displayed, and amused by the number of
good stories told across the dining-table. That
Kinglake was a strong Unionist, appears clearly
from a letter to myself, in which, praising my
" Home Rule and Justice to Ireland " in terms which
1 will not quote, he adds : " It brings under clear

262 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

light the question which, though strangely passed
over by others, is really after all the main question
so far as concerns poor Ireland, viz., whether she is fit
to govern herself; and I can say that I not only
agree with the whole tenor of your letter, but with
every sentence it contains." Lord Houghton was
most kind to me, as he was to so many younger men,
and I once stayed with him at Fryston, but I never
was among his special proteges or favourites. His
insatiable curiosity and perfectly natural desire to
know every one worth knowing, added to no ordinary
accomplishments and poetical gifts of a high order,
made him a personage in English society, and his
memory is still cherished with gratitude. But he
fell short of the greatness to which perhaps he once
aspired, and his failure to attain it is partly explained
by the humorous reason which he is said to have
given for his doubtful success in the House of
Commons, viz., that he could not help saying to
himself in the midst of his speeches, " Well, Dicky,
how are you getting on ? " Probably many other
aspirants to fame, if equally candid, would make the
same confession.

Another literary man whom I knew far more
intimately, and whose friendship 1 deeply valued,
was Matthew Arnold. What Professor Max Mtiller
well calls " his Olympian manners " never repelled
me, for 1 soon discovered that they were not in the
nature of airs, and did not even conceal his warm and
simple heart. I seldom talked with him on theology
or literary subjects, and I hope that he never found

MR. MATTHEW ARNOLD 263

out how much I preferred his poetry to his prose ;
but he was perfectly frank and open in discussing
political and other subjects in which we had a common
interest. When the Professorship of English was
founded and endowed from the revenues of Merton,
I was deputed by my fellow-electors to ascertain
privately whether he would care to become a candi-
date for the post, without in any way prejudicing our
freedom of choice. He at once decided against it,
telling me that he regarded himself as a more or less
ornamental lecturer, who might deliver a few well-
finished discourses in each year, but who could not
undertake the weekly drudgery of teaching. Though
he latterly went to America on a lecturing tour, and
was afterwards induced to lecture elsewhere, he as-
sured me that he disliked it heartily, and the last
letter that I received from him, dated January 26,
1888, expresses the same feeling. " I am just off for
the North to make a horrid discourse about America
at Hull and at Bradford ; I have then to prepare a
horrid discourse about Milton, and a horrid article
on Welsh Disestablishment — all before the middle
of February. ... I should much like to come and
hear you on Home Rule, instead of discoursing
myself on America ; you are sure to be good, and
I know you speak without the least difl&culty.
Fortunate man ! " In this last remark, I must say
that he showed very little insight into char-
acter.

Among those friends of about my own age who
attained reputation in political life, few, if any, were

264 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

so remarkable as Henry Fawcett, of whom Mr. Leslie
Stephen wrote an admirable memoir. I did not
know him until long after he had lost his sight, and
when he had made his position in the House of
Commons. I always regarded him as a singularly
honest and straightforward man, with no finesse and
not much delicacy of perception, but with true
political instincts and insight. Of course, his triumph
over his blindness was heroic, but, this victory once
achieved, I suspect that his infirmity was not an un-
mixed disadvantage to him. Not only did it win the
sympathy of great audiences, but it compelled him
to concentrate his thoughts and train his memory,
fortifying him against many distractions to which
most people yield. The speech by which he secured
his acceptance at Brighton from a meeting assembled
to adopt another candidate was a veritable masterpiece
of legitimate self-confidence, and he is credited with
a characteristic reply to an objector at a later meeting.
This gentleman wanted to know how Mr. Fawcett
would be able to catch the Speaker's eye, and how he
would avoid going into the wrong lobby. As to the
first query, Fawcett said that he feared he must be
dependent on the kindness of friends in attracting
the Speaker's attention ; as to the second, he admitted
that he might now and then accidentally find his way
into the wrong lobby, but he added that at all events
his case would not be so bad as that of the sitting
member, " for he is always in the wrong lobby, and
he does it on purpose." This story reminds me of
another also told of Fawcett, though I cannot vouch

MR. HENRY FAWCETT 265

for it. When he first stood for Southwark as a carpet-
bagger, he promptly engaged an apartment described
in the printed notice affixed to it as " Mr. Fawcett's
Committee Room." If any one called, which rarely
happened, he was informed that just then the Com-
mittee was sitting, the fact being that, as in the show
of Punch and Judy, there was no one behind the
curtain except Fawcett and his secretary. At last a
time came when a larger room had to be engaged for
a public meeting, which of course was properly
advertised, and attended by reporters. Very few
electors looked in, but Fawcett delivered a spirited
address and afterwards got hold of a reporter, when
the following dialogue is supposed to have occurred.
" What do you think you can say of this meeting,
reporter ? Can you describe it as a numerous 1
meeting?" "No, sir, this is not exactly what we
should call a numerous meeting ; it is rather what we'i
are in the habit of describing as an influential^
meeting." And so the papers of the next morning
duly stated that Mr. Fawcett had addressed a highly
influential meeting of Southwark electors.

It has been my lot to consult many doctors, and,
like others who have suffered from the eflfects of
nervous strain, I became a patient of Sir Andrew
Clark, whose death I felt as a personal loss. There
was something in his manner which failed to inspire
confidence in some, on a first visit, but he struck me
at once as a conscientious and skilful physician. In
several respects he seemed to me an example to his
profession. Instead of regarding diagnosis as every-

266 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

thing, and treatment as quite secondary, lie firmly-
grasped the supreme truth that diagnosis is worth
absolutely nothing, from a medical point of view,
except as a guide to the treatment and cure of
disease. In the next place, he devoted far more
time than most doctors to careful questioning of his
patient, well knowing that half an hour spent in this
way may throw more light on a case than could be
obtained by repeated and scientific investigation of
symptoms without invoking the patient's aid. Then
he would go fully and minutely into personal habits
— diet, exercise, sleep, and so forth — recognising
the obvious fact that a proper regulation of these,
operating over months and years, is a far more
potent instrument of health than a temporary ad-
ministration of drugs. If he gave each patient the
impression that he was specially interested in the
case submitted to him, it was no deceptive art, for
he carefully noted the facts of each case, referred
to his notes on each subsequent visit, and gave
written instructions as well as written prescriptions.
Nor is it true to say that he laid down much the
same rules for all. On the contrary, as I can testify,
his system was diff"erent not only for diff"erent
patients, but for the same patient at diff"erent
periods, and he expressly authorised me to vary it
according to my own experience. To him, the
detection and mitigation of organic or very serious
disease was not the one function of a consulting
physician ; he was equally interested in helping men
of weakly health to economise it and make the most

SIR ANDREW CLARK 267

of it. In spite of his enormous practice, he invited
patients to correspond with him, and would find
time to correspond with them, however much he
may have overtaxed his strength by such extra
work. A story is told of him in connection with this
which may be worth repeating, and may well have
been true of some one else, but which is so little
characteristic of him that it eminently "requires
confirmation," He is said to have confided to a
friend his feeling of despair when, on returning home
late at night from a country visit, he found a pile
of letters awaiting him. On being asked what he
did with them, he replied that he ordered a bottle of
champagne. " Well," said his friend, " did that en-
able you to dispose of them ? " " No," he answered ;
" but it put me into a frame of mind in which I
did not care a d — n whether I disposed of them
or not."

While I have always been a great admirer of
eloquence, and anxious to hear the best speakers
of my time, I have not been very fortunate in my
opportunities of doing so — at least on memorable
occasions. Excluding those still living, I agree with
the popular judgment in placing Gladstone and
Bright first in the political class — the one as a
debater, the other as an orator. The same want,
of concentration which is an admitted weakness
of Gladstone's speeches, equally struck me in those
of Edward Geofirey, Lord Derby, lucid and elegant
as they were in form. But I heard him late in his
life, when he had ceased to be the Rupert of debate,

268 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and was speaking on no congenial theme. If a
second class of political speakers were to be found,
it must be a very large one indeed ; for public life
in England is a national training school of rhetoric,
and success depends only too much on the gift of
addressing large audiences. This gift, too, is more
cultivated than ever by politicians, since a seat is
no longer to be won quietly, and every member
of Parliament must now have talked himself into
the House of Commons. For one man who can
make a great speech, there are hundreds — nay, thou-
sands — who can make a good speech, and skill in
debating is probably commoner than it was in the
great days of Parliamentary oratory. The decline
of such oratory, no less than of forensic oratory, is
largely due to a very simple cause — the overwork
of leading speakers both in Parliament and at the
Bar, who naturally set the standard to younger
men. It is not due to any loss of sensibility on
the part of the modern public, rendering them
incapable of being moved by true eloquence. When-
ever any one capable of true eloquence trusts him-
self to speak from his heart in language worthy
of his subject, he scarcely ever fails to meet with
a cordial response ; and the eloquence of the pulpit,
if it is less studied than in former ages, retains
as much power as ever.

I have already mentioned Samuel Wilberforce
and Magee as really great preachers, and I think
Liddon may fairly be ranked with them. I should
place F. D. Maurice and Dean Stanley in a some-

PULPIT AND PLATFORM 269

what lower class ; still, both commanded the atten-
tion of large congregations by a certain prophetic
earnestness and breadth of Catholic sympathy.
Though I heard Spurgeon twice at the Surrey Music
Hall, and recognised in him the qualities of an
admirable platform speaker, there was no pretence
of literary finish in his style, and his efibrts to
stir the higher emotions were much less successful
than his broad touches of humour. For a combina-
tion of both these faculties, and, indeed, for popular
oratory of the most persuasive kind, I have never
heard the equal of Gough, the " Temperance orator."
The homeliest topics became full of pathos under
his treatment, and few could refrain without diffi-
culty from tears, as he described the joy felt in a
drunkard's home when the news comes of his having
taken the pledge, or compared his downward course
from conviviality towards hopeless intemperance to
the fate of a sailing party above the falls of Niagara,
which laughs at warnings until it is too late to stem
the current, and the boat is carried over into the
abyss. The lecture which I attended was in the
Oxford Town Hall, and Gough soon quelled some
undergraduate opposition by challenging the dis-
turbers to mount the platform and have it out with
him. When they declined, he taunted them with
knowing in their hearts that what he said was true,
and pleased the gallery with a story not incapable of
manifold applications. "An American," he said,
"came home to his wife in the worst of tempers,
and was asked by her what ailed him. On his

2 70 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

coraplaining tliat he had been shamefully abused,
and called all manner of names, by a neighbour, the
wife sensibly remarked : ' Never mind that, Thomas ;
he may say it, but he can't prove it.' ' Confound
the fellow,' replied the husband, ' but he has proved
it, and that's just what I complain of.'" It is
wonderful how dull a speech may be enlivened by
a judicious seasoning of apposite, though common-
place, and even stale, anecdotes. Not that any
speaker is justified in " talking down to his audience,"
or will generally find it good policy to do so. It
may be necessary to choose simple ideas and ex-
pressions for a simple audience ; but a simple
audience knows as well as a learned body whether
a speaker's heart and soul is in what he is saying ;
and this, after all, is the secret of winning — not
perhaps applause, but confidence. It is possible
to have too high a literary standard, for that cannot
be sustained in debate or impromptu allusions ; but
it is not possible to have too high a standard of
morality and sentiment. As for preparation, I have
no belief in any speech worth study being delivered
without preparation, though it is possible for a
speaker with Gladstone's marvellous repertory of
ready-made ideas and expressions to arrange and
produce them at very short notice. But the kind
and degree of preparation required must depend
on the individual character of the speaker. One
man, for instance, may be more consciously inspired
by first thoughts and words occurring to him at
the moment ; another man, by second thoughts and

PULPIT AND PLATFORM 271

words carefully weighed beforehand. In either case,
the speaker will do wisely to follow his own natural
method, the object being that, whatever the source
of his inspiration, his audience should be made to
feel it.

CHAPTER XIII

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES

Tours in Europe — Voyage to America — Travelling in America — Visit
to Lord Dufferin at Ottawa — Letter to tlie Times on the Canadian
Pacific Eailway and the political crisis in Canada — Experience of
voyages in public steam- vessels and private yachts.

I MAY pass lightly over my travels in foreign
countries, because they have been neither extensive
nor fruitful of interesting experiences. My know-
ledge of French and Grerman being too slight for
purposes of sustained conversation, I have seldom
obtained introductions to foreigners of eminence, and
when I have gone abroad, it has generally been for
purposes of recreation or health, rather than of study.
I first visited Switzerland in 1853, with my old
friend Mr. C. S. Parker, and made a rapid tour in
the Mont Blanc district, the Monte Rosa district, and
the Bernese Oberland. Those were days before the
formation of the Alpine Club, when a reputation for
climbing was cheaply earned, and ascents now con-
sidered easy still enjoyed a prestige of difiiculty
carefully maintained by the self-interest of guides.
It is fair to say, however, that many a mauvais pas
has since been made practicable for ladies by steps
and even chains, while the experimental discovery of
new routes has rendered most summits accessible to

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 273

stout climbers in good training. In the course of
the next thirty years, I often revisited the Alps,
though latterly at long intervals. In this way I
became familiar with all the best-known passes,
and a few of the best-known peaks in the classical
districts around Chamounix, Zermatt, Grindelwald,
and Pontresina, but I never attempted difficult
feats, and was satisfied with such glacier passes
as the Strahleck and the Weiss Thor — which then
included the Arite Blanche. I have therefore no
right to speak with authority on the vexed ques-
tion of mountaineering without guides, and yet I
will venture to express a strong opinion against this
growing practice. It can be said, of course, that
a thoroughly experienced and well-trained amateur
may be as good as a guide in activity, strength,
endurance, skill in climbing, judgment of weather,
and even knowledge of the ice-world. So it can be
said that an amateur may be equal to a professional
sailor in the management of a sailing-boat. But
what cannot be said, in either case, with the least
approach to truth, is that it is equally safe for a
party to go out in charge of an amateur ; and that,
for the most obvious of reasons. With the profes-
sional the study of safety is a traditional art,
strengthened by training from boyhood ; and his
whole livelihood depends on his never meeting with
a serious accident ; whereas the amateur, however
prudent, has no such instinct and no such motive to
guard him against rashness.

In the cholera year of 1854, I posted with a

s

274 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

family party from Dijon to Geneva, with leisure to
admire that superb view of the Mont Blanc range
from the Jura which is now rarely seen by travellers.
The epidemic was spreading in those regions, and in
one town it was difficult to get the carriage har-
nessed, but no visible precautions were taken on the
frontier or elsewhere, and there was much less panic
than has since prevailed on much slighter occasions.
In the following year, when the cholera had revived,
I was twice fumigated, together with my luggage, in
the Italian lake-country, the authorities being then
content with this perfectly futile substitute for
quarantine. In 1856 with Lord Davey, and again
twenty years later with Mr. Francis Galton, I made
a short tour in the Bavarian and Austrian highlands,
to which I should assign the prize for natural beauty
among those parts of Europe which I have visited,
reserving the second place for the Italian valleys of
the Alps. In 1871 I witnessed the famous Passion-
play at Ober-Ammergau, a beautiful and pathetic
spectacle, which had not then (and perhaps has not
yet) been vulgarised by popularity, but which is
hardly calculated to fortify Christian faith. The
dramatic art of the villagers who play the chief parts
is certainly marvellous, and is often explained as
traditional or hereditary ; but it has not been
sufficiently remarked that many of them are manu-
facturers of church ornaments by trade, and live
surrounded by engravings of Holy Families and
other sacred groups. Nothing struck me as more
wonderful than the statuesque rigidity of some two

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 275

hundred men, women, and children marshalled in a
tableau vivant around an effigy of the brazen serpent,
among whom I could not detect the slightest move-
ment, with an opera-glass, except that of a flag
stirred by the wind.

In other years I made somewhat hasty expedi-
tions into Belgium, Holland, North and South
Germany, North Italy, the Riviera, the South of
Spain, and Algiers. When I visited the great cities
of Andalusia (in 1878), my headquarters were at
Gibraltar, where I was the guest of Lord Napier of
Magdala. On my return journey from Granada, I
was to have proceeded by steamer from Malaga, but
the boat was suddenly taken off, and, having failed
to get a passage by a Spanish coaster, I was happily
obliged to make a forced march, chiefly on horseback,
by the coast route, which proved the most interesting
part of my Spanish journey. It was said to be
rather dangerous, as passing through a country
haunted by the brigands ; but I was consoled by
the assurance that, as they had lately committed a
daring robbery and were being chased by the police,
they would probably not hazard another crime
just then. While I was at Gibraltar, Lord Napier
crossed to Tangier, on the invitation of Sir John
Hay, and kindly took me with him. Tangier was
then a purely Moorish toWn, and squalid in the
extreme. Lord Napier declared that, except Benares,
he had never seen a city so intensely Oriental.
Curious as it was, it did not strike one as an attrac-
tive place for a residence, but I greatly enjoyed two

276 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

rides across the open country at the back. I spent
the month of January 1880 at Algiers, with Lord
and Lady Spencer, who had a villa in Mustapha
Superieu7\ Unfortunately, the season was unusually
cold, and unsuitable for excursions into the moun-
tains, but we rode almost every day on excellent
little horses hired on the spot, and explored the
whole neighbourhood for miles in every direction.
The view of the Atlas range from the hill behind
Mustapha Superieur was certainly very impressive,
and the Moorish city very interesting, though not
quite so primitive as Tangier. The air, too, was
crisp and exhilarating, but the chill at sundown was
almost as trying as on the South Coast of France,
where the climate is much the same, and I used to
doubt whether much was gained by crossing the
Mediterranean from health-resorts with a southern
aspect, comfortable hotels, and ample means of
communication, by road or railway, to an African
watering-place with a northern aspect, inferior hotels,
and comparatively small facilities of locomotion,
which have since been greatly increased. During
that winter a number of robberies took place in the
best quarter of Algiers, and I remember that one
evening, when I wished to communicate with Lord
Minto, who lived about half a mile off, no servant
was prepared to go on such an errand without an
escort.

In August 1873 I took a voyage to America
with the present Dean of Eipon and Mrs. Fremantle.
Our port of destination was Boston, and shortly

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 277

before reaching " the banks," some hundreds of miles
from the American coast, we encountered a hurricane,
which proved most destructive to Nova Scotian
shipping, and has its place in the history of Atlantic
storms. The barometer suddenly went down to
28.1, and the ship was hove-to for many hours, but,
the engines being somewhat too weak, there was
great difficulty in keeping her from falling off into
the trough of the waves, and I believe that during a
part of the night we were in considerable danger of
being thrown on to our beam-ends. However, we
had an admirable captain, and nothing worse hap-
pened than a delay of two days. While the storm
was at its height, I noticed two things which I had
not seen before, and which I was told are character-
istic of specially violent gales. One was a certain
flattened appearance of the waves as they rose angrily
to their greatest height, as if the gusts of wind bore
down upon them like weights, and suppressed their
upward dash ; the other was the semblance of seams
or scratches on their surface, as if the blast was com-
posed of gritty particles harrowing the water. From
Boston we proceeded into the White Mountains,
partly in order to get relief from the great heat.
This region may be compared in some respects with
our Lake District, but the highest peaks attain 5000
or 6000 feet, though in other respects the scenery is
not so varied and beautiful. We ascended Mount
Washington by the mountain-railway in so heavy a
gale as to endanger our equilibrium in passing over
trestle-bridges which span the gullies, and some of

278 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

our fellow-passengers actually preferred to remain
for the night at the hotel on the summit. This
lightened the car, and so increased the risk for those
of us who came down, and it was thought prudent at
certain points for all the party to sit on the weather
side. I then enjoyed the kind hospitality of Lord
DufFerin for ten days or a fortnight at the Citadel of
Quebec, where I remember to have met at dinner
Mr. Joseph Arch, whom I already knew, and who
was then engaged on some mission connected with
emigration. Thence I went on by water and railway,
through Montreal, to Toronto, on a visit to Mr.
Goldwin Smith, and, by Niagara and Buffalo, to
Albany, on a visit to the late Mr. Pruyn. The great
financial crisis of 1873 was then at its worst, and I
have no doubt that, under his skilful advice, I might
have invested money very profitably in American
railway securities depreciated far below their value.
Meanwhile, a slight, but persistent, indisposition
crippled me from travelling far in hot weather, and
I had to content myself with visiting several American
friends in their own houses. Among these were
Mr. Charles Adams, the American Minister in London
during the war, Mr. Abram Hewitt, and President
Eliot of Harvard University, with whom I stayed,
after visiting Yale on my way.

Tt would be superfluous to praise the hospitality
of American private houses, but it was impossible not
to see how much it is hampered and curtailed by
difficulties of serOTce,of which all my hosts complained.
I hardly ever ventured to ask for hot water in dress-

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 279

ing, or to utter an actual request that my boots
should be cleaned ; my plan was to place them out-
side my door, as at an hotel, and I generally found
that, if not blacked, they had been rubbed over
before the next morning. Once, after dinner, at an
American country house, I put the question whether
any one present, except myself, had ever been invited
by a total stranger, in a public vehicle, to spend the
night under his roof, instead of going to an hotel. I
confess that I was surprised, as well as gratified,
when the only three Americans in the room declared
that they had been the recipients of this very courtesy
in England, and each proceeded to tell his own story.
Considering that memories of the Civil War were
still comparatively recent, I was fortunate in escap-
ing hostile criticisims on the attitude of England
during that crisis. On one occasion, however, I was
driven into a corner, but succeeded in turning the
tables on my opponent, by compelling him gradually
to admit that no charge of Secessionist partisanship
could be made against our working-classes or middle
classes, but only (if at all) against the British aristo-
cracy, " whom," I said boldly, " you afiiect to despise,
but whose favour you value above that of all the rest
of the nation put together." To which his candid
reply was : " Well, sir, you have us there."

Much has been written about the comparative
facilities and conveniences of travelling in America
and England. My experience of American travelling
is, of 'course, out of date, but I gather from all that
I have read or heard that the essential features of

28o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the railway system remain unchanged. If this be
so, I consider it far inferior, on the whole, to our
own, in comfort, if not in economy. The most
obvious difference between the two lies in the
arrangements of carriages. The ordinary English
train consists of a number of separate carriages, each
containing several compartments, usually separate
from each other, though sometimes connected by a
side corridor. The ordinary American train is a line
of long one-roomed carriages and Pullman cars, all
constructed with platforms at both ends, so that
guards or passengers can pass through all of them
from the hindmost carriage to the engine by a corri-
dor in the middle, which is virtually continuous.
This arrangement has evidently the advantage of
publicity. It is an undoubted safeguard, for instance,
against a solitary lady being insulted or robbed, it
enables passengers to walk about on the journey in
search of friends, and it gives free access to smoking-
cars, refreshment-cars, and lavatories. All these are
great conveniences, though not altogether incon-
sistent with the adaptation of the English system.
On the other hand, all the comforts of comparative
privacy are lost. A small party cannot secure a
separate carriage; invalids must travel exposed to
the public gaze, unless they can engage the " state-
room " of a Pullman car ; any one desiring a window
to be opened or closed, instead of asking the leave
of his opposite neighbour, must negotiate with
twenty or thirty occupants of the car, some of whom
may probably object. Again, the corridor in the

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 281

middle leaves a space for seats on either side rather
too wide for one but rather too narrow for two ; the
consequence being that American railway travellers
in a long open car are more isolated from each other
than in an English compartment. It may be added
that, not only are the cars apt to be greatly over-
heated, but ventilation is apt to be very defective,
and the windows, having no sashes, cannot be let
down from above, but must be gouged up from
below and fixed at the side, just so as to admit a
current of air where it is least wanted — a defect
which has been slavishly copied in certain sleeping-
cars on our own lines. Pullman cars are the Ameri-
can substitute for our first-class carriages. Their
upholstery is gorgeous, and, but for the publicity
which is inseparable from their principle, I am
disposed to prefer them to any other type of sleeping-
car. But I know by experience that even a " state-
room " in a Pullman car may be heated to a tempera-
ture like that of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. In one
of these ovens I was reposing on a journey from
Boston to Montreal, when the negro conductor in
charge roused me about midnight with the pleasant
news that a bridge had broken down in front of us,
and that we must all turn out in heavy rain. There
we had to wait an hour or two, and drive round
several miles in open vehicles to the other side of
a river, to proceed in unwarmed cars, and without
any means of procuring food.

There are many other annoyances incident to
American railway travelling, such as the incessant

282 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

intrusion of newsboys and other hawkers of petty
wares patrolling the train from end to end, back-
wards and forwards, the equally incessant demands
of conductors for tickets to be punched, and
so forth. All such annoyances are incident to a
system which makes the whole train a thoroughfare,
but they might possibly be remedied if American
patience did not tolerate any amount of annoyances
in travelling. The worst of all, according to my
observation, was the habitual surliness, not to say
insolence, of American railway officials, whether
booking clerks, porters, or ticket collectors. By way
of contrast, I may here say that in sixty years' expe-
rience of English railway travelling I have never
once had to complain of a railway servant for
incivility, and only once for misconduct. Before I
had been a week on American railways, I had fre-
quently met with official rudeness in response to
studious courtesy on my part, and witnessed it in
the case of other passengers. When I complained of
it to one of my American hosts concerned in railway
management, he fully admitted it, but said that it
was an incurable evil, as the directors would find it
very difficult to replace a dismissed servant, while
their servants, if dismissed, would easily find a place
elsewhere. I see that the English travellers in
America are still making the same complaint, which
is as old as Anthony Trollope's American tour. My
own experience exactly tallies with his. Americans
whom you meet in society, in the streets, on the
railways, or elsewhere, are as civil and obliging as

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 283

Englishmen, provided that you have no claim upon
their services ; but those who are officially engaged
and paid to help or attend upon you, too often seek
to show their independence by obtrusive neglect or
rude behaviour.

But the special merits and vices of the American
railway system do not end there. Its great boast is
the express service for luggage, and, so far as this
consists in attaching a numbered label to each
article, and giving a corresponding label or " check "
to the owner, it is certainly deserving of imitation,
though it inevitably involves some little delay. In
all other respects, it is a clumsy and very expensive
substitute for the English plan of dealing with
luggage. The fact is that, but for the miserable
scarcity of railway porters in America, the express
system would lose half its raison d'Stre. The reason
why an American traveller employs an express
company to call for his luggage hours before his
own departure, and see it placed in the train, is
that he must otherwise convey it himself to the
station much earlier than should be necessary, take
his chance of finding a porter willing to serve him,
and submit to a great deal of unmannerly hustling,
besides the vexatious delay. For a similar reason,
he makes over his checks to the itinerant express-
man who touts for his custom in the train, well
knowing that, if he did not, he might have to wait
and be hustled for half an hour or an hour before he
could get hold of his luggage at the station of his
arrival. Let it be granted that he seldom loses it

2 84 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

in the end — though nearly the same may be said of
the English system — he buys this security at the
cost not merely of paying two exorbitant charges,
but of having to allow a large margin of time at
both ends of his journey. A single instance may
suffice to illustrate this. When I first arrived at
New York, I had no more luggage than could have
been packed into the inside of a four-wheeled London
cab, and, as my destination was less than two miles
from the station, I might have been conveyed
thither, luggage and all, for one shilling, had I been
in London, and had I been shabby enough to grudge
the driver anything above the bare minimum fare.
As it was, being in New York, I had to pay the
equivalent of five shillings for my cab, and six
shillings for the delivery of my luggage two hours
later — in all, eleven shillings for a worse result than
might have been obtained in London for one. I
thought, in my simplicity, that I had been grossly
overcharged, but I was assured by New York friends
that I had only paid the regular tarifi".

The inordinate expense of cabs is said to have been
more or less reduced of late years by one or two of the
great American railway companies, but it will pro-
bably be long before other discomforts of American
railway travelling are abated, simply because they suit
the ideas and habits of the people, who, after all,
cannot be expected specially to consult those of travel-
ling Britishers. Americans are naturally gregarious,
and are constantly taking longer journeys than are
possible in Great Britain ; it is no wonder, then, if

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 285

their travelling arrangements are inconsistent with
privacy, and calculated to please those who require
a travelling hotel for days and nights together. But
there was no excuse for the want of anything like
an American Bradshaw's Railway Guide when I was
in the United States. This almost indispensable
manual for travellers was first published in England
about sixty years ago, when railways were in their
infancy, yet in 1873 the connections between various
American lines had to be laboriously gleaned by a
comparison of the time-tables issued by difi'erent
companies. As for the so-called omnibuses which
I saw in Boston, and the coaches which ran in the
White Mountain district, I doubt whether any
public vehicles so ramshackle and cumbrous have
traversed English . roads since the reign of Queen
Anne or George I. All the White Mountain coaches
were drawn by six horses, skilfully driven from the
box. Most of the American roads on which I
travelled, and even the streets of New York, were
so miserably kept, that I understood for the first
time the contemptuous use of the phrase, " a one-
horse concern." But all this was more than twenty-
six years ago, and this in so new a country is
equivalent to a century.

I had still a fortnight to spare, and, being in
better health, was about to visit Washington and
Philadelphia, when I received an urgent invitation
from Lord Dufierin to return and stay with him
at Ottawa, for the purpose of attending the great
and critical debate in the Dominion Parliament on

286 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the question of the Canadian Pacific Railway, then
convulsing the whole country. As I was more in-
terested in Imperial politics than in American insti-
tutions, I hastened back to Canada, passing again
through Montreal, and attended the Canadian House
of Commons almost every night while the debate
lasted, though I was obliged to leave for New York
before the final division was taken, in order to catch
my steamer for England. At Ottawa, party spirit
ran so high that Lord Dufierin felt bound to suspend
his wonted hospitalities, so that I had no opportunity
of meeting the political leaders at his table, but Lord
Rosebery and other friends were among my fellow-
guests in the house. On my homeward voyage, I
wrote a somewhat elaborate letter to the Times,
which appeared a day or two after our arrival, re-
cording my impressions of the debate which led to
the fall of Sir John Macdonald. As I was composing
this letter on a saloon table, with some difficulty, in
a gale of wind, I was flattered by a compliment to
my seamanship from one of my fellow-passengers,
who told me that he and others, after watching me,
had agreed that I was the only landsman on board
who could attempt literary work under such condi-
tions. As Sir John Macdonald himself afterwards
told me that my letter had produced a sensible effect
on Canadian opinion, and as the sentiments expressed
in it have been more than confirmed by the later
course of events, I subjoin three paragraphs which
I have no desire to modify.

" During my stay at Ottawa, it was impossible

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 287

not to be struck by the malicious credulity of Cana-
dian party-spirit, and the extreme lengths to which
party-warfare is carried at the instigation of a most
virulent and unscrupulous Press. I was constantly
assured that Sir J. Macdonald had advised the Pro-
rogation for the sole purpose of gaining time to buy
off opponents, and was deliberately spinning out the
debate while his agents were employing the basest
means of winning back defaulters. On the other
hand, I was gravely informed, with particulars of
names and circumstances, that persons connected with
the Northern Pacific Railway Company were paying
down hard cash for promises to vote against the
Government, in the hope of frustrating the rival
scheme of a Canadian Pacific Railway. . . . Con-
sidering how great had been the irritation produced
by certain scandalous incidents, and how sedulously
it had been fomented by newspaper writers, the
debate was, on the whole, characterised by tolerable
moderation of tone and abstinence from personalities.
The language used was, indeed, more incisive and
less measured than we are accustomed to hear at
Westminster, and I sometimes asked myself whether
the most animated of our Parliamentary speakers
would not be regarded as tame and spiritless by the
Canadian Legislature. Still the rules of the game,
so to speak, were evidently the same, and even when
the hitting was hardest and wildest, what Lord
Dufferin aptly called "striking below the belt" was
very rare. One gentleman went so far as to accuse
another of having taken money out of the Provincial

I

288 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Treasury and applied it to electioneering corruption,
but when lie proceeded to press the matter home, he
was checked by the sense of the audience. Perhaps
Canadian skins are thicker on the average than are
developed in an old country and a temperate climate ;
certainly the wounds inflicted did not appear to
rankle ; social intercourse was hardly interrupted, and
the combatants met at the Rideau Club on the same
terms of friendly enmity as those which prevail
among barristers at the circuit mess after the fiercest
encounters in court. The whole temper of the de-
bate was distinctively English, and not American.
In the most vigorous sallies and retorts there was
usually a tacit assumption of honest and patriotic
motives, and if few speeches were seasoned with
classical quotations or literary allusions, none that I
heard was disfigured by ambitious bombast. The
only serious departure from the unwritten law of the
House of Commons that came under my notice was
the bold insinuation, or rather the positive asser-
tion, made by Mr. Mackenzie and repeated by an-
other member, that Mr. Speaker had been guilty of
' collusion ' with the Government in respect of the
Prorogation. But for this violation of a salutary
etiquette, I should have carried away the convic-
tion that, in all essential points, the Canadian
Parliament had faithfully reproduced the spirit
as well as the form of English Parliamentary pro-
cedure.

" It was inevitable that such a debate as that
which I witnessed should incidentally throw some

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 289

light on the prevailing sentiments of Canadians
towards Great Britain and the United States. That
which first roused public indignation against the
Ministers was not the discovery that Sir John
Macdonald had played the part of election agent
for the Government, but a false story that a rail-
way on which the political destinies of Canada were
in some degree staked had been treacherously de-
livered over into the power of an American ring.
Making every allowance for the share which party
spirit may have had in stimulating this indignation,
I cannot doubt that it was spontaneous, and no one
carefully watching the political drama at Ottawa
could fail to arrive at the conclusion that, for the
present, nothing is so unpopular in Canada as Ameri-
can influence. On the future relation of Canada to
her powerful neighbour there was less reticence than
I should have anticipated, and more than one speaker
openly declared, what I had often heard said in pri-
vate, that, in the opinion of all sensible Canadians,
Independence would practically be nothing but a step
towards Annexation — a measure which no public
man in Canada dares to advocate, and which, so far
as I could learn, is repudiated by all classes except
a small mercantile circle at Montreal. It is easy
to sneer at Canadian loyalty, but if by loyalty is
meant fidelity to the Crown as the golden link be-
tween Canadians and the Mother Country, of which
they habitually speak as 'home,' I for one believe
the feeling to be the mainspring of Canadian politics,
to have been materially strengthened by Confedera-

290 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

tion, and to be almost as universal in the Maritime
Provinces as in Ontario.

"This deep attachment to British nationality is
not inconsistent with a certain jealousy of British
interference with Canadian legislation, such as was
manifested in some barely respectful allusions to the
opinions of the Privy Council, and the law-officers of
the Crown, on the validity of the Oaths Bill. Nor
is it to be treated as transitory, because it is difficult
to conceive of Canada, with her population quad-
rupled, still content to be a dependency, or because
the law of geographical necessity is supposed to
require her junction with the United States. Let
us compare realities with realities, and ideals with
ideals. Canada, as it is, has no reason to desire, and
does not, in fact, desire, annexation to the American
Union as it is ; Canada, as it might be, if Con-
federation should realise the visions of its founders,
may perhaps be still less willing to exchange an
almost nominal dependence on London for a real
dependence on Washington, even though Washington
should then be the capital of a Republic numbering
1 00,000,000 citizens. Happily, the disposal of their
allegiance rests entirely with the Canadian people,
and can hardly become a subject of dispute between
Great Britain and the United States. Until the voice
of the Canadian nation pronounces decisively in
favour of annexation, it cannot be the policy of the
United States to propose annexation ; if ever, and
whenever, that day shall come, it cannot be the policy
of Great Britain to oppose annexation."

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 291

In the summer of 1885, and again in 1896, I
made voyages to the fiords of Norway, the first, in the
steam-yacht Ceylon, and the second, in the Orient line
steamship Garonne. In 1885 we reached a point a
little beyond the North Cape, but were unable to
land. In 1 896, after landing at the North Cape, we
touched at Vadso, went on to Spitzbergen, and re-
turned to Vadso for the eclipse. Such voyages are
now much too common to be worthy of description,
and neither of these was marked by any incidents of
special interest. On both occasions we had tolerably
good weather, and on one or other of them I had the
opportunity of seeing all the finest coast scenery of
Norway. This is certainly more striking, because on
a larger scale, than anything on the West coast of
Scotland, with the addition of snow-clad mountains,
and some of the fiords strongly resemble Swiss valleys
with the sea running up into them. Perhaps Loch
Hourn alone of Scotch sea-lochs will bear comparison
with them. But I should not place even the Romsdal
or any other Norwegian valley that I saw, except the
Nserodal, on the same level with the finest Swiss
valleys, especially as they are greatly inferior in
forests, pasturages, and picturesque chdlets. The
mountains of Spitzbergen, as seen from the West, are
like the summits of the High Alps, with three or
four thousand feet of rocks and glaciers sliced ofi"
from their green pedestals and set down in the midst
of the Arctic Ocean, but I observed no peaks as steep
as those of the Mont Blanc, Monte Eosa, or Bernese
Oberland group. We first anchored in Advent Bay,

292 MEMORIES AHD IMPRESSIONS

where a small wooden hotel, of the Alpine type, had
just been erected. Sir Martin Conway had quitted
it on the morning of our arrival, but we found there
an English gentleman who had been staying farther
north with Andr^e's party — which abandoned its
enterprise soon afterwards, for want of a favourable
wind. We also saw the wreck of a coasting vessel
driven ashore in the previous autumn, and the rude
graves of all but two of its crew, who died of scurvy
during the winter. One of the survivors came on
board the Garonne, and was said to have been saved
by the resolution of his comrade, who kept constantly
shaking him and punching him in the ribs to rouse
him from his deadly lethargy and exhaustion. On
sailing northward from Vadso, we had left behind
two of our fellow-passengers — Sir Norman Lockyer,
who required a few days on shore to adjust his
astronomical instruments, and Mr. William Morris,
then in broken health and under the care of a doctor,
who could not risk the cold of Spitzbergen. He
gained nothing by the voyage, and died shortly after-
wards. As is well known, the great eclipse was
practically invisible at Vadso, owing to a persistent
bank of clouds, though it was fairly well seen off
Nova Zembla, and even farther south. AVe had
already had two rehearsals of it on board ship by the
aid of magic lanterns, for the purpose of practising
those of our passengers who could draw, in the art of
sketching rapidly the various phenomena to be ex-
pected, and all were roused early in the morning to
witness an unique spectacle. Yet there we lay, sur-

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 293

rounded by twenty or thirty ships of divers nations,
all assembled on the same errand, vainly watching
the heavens, while Nature, sublimely indifferent to
our hopes or desires, obstinately refused to be inter-
rogated. The darkness was not so great as on an
ordinary starless night, but it seemed to me of a more
lurid hue, and, on looking away from the sun, I dis-
tinctly observed two or three luminous patches on
the horizon, like the halo over a town lighted by gas,
which doubtless represented land or water beyond
the range of the advancing shadow. Had we re-
mained but a day or two longer in those latitudes,
we should have fallen in with Nansen, who appeared
at Vardo (west of Vadso) a day or two later, and of
whose safety we heard at Trondhyem.

Having had some experience of voyaging in
ocean-going vessels under sail and steam, as well as
in public steam-yachts equipped for shorter cruises, I
venture to record one or two practical reflections
that have been forced upon me. No one can expect
to find a select party on board any ship but a private
yacht, but passengers soon assort themselves, and
there is more good-fellowship than might be expected
in such very close quarters, perhaps because the
necessity of mutual concessions is felt by every one.
But the gregarious spirit of camaraderie is apt to be
carried too far, and to verge upon social tyranny,
when all the members of a very mixed party are
pressed to join in entertainments got up by a few,
and both sides of the deck are monopolised by deck-
billiards, deck-quoits, "bull," dancing aZ /resco, and

294 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

other amusements which are positively irksome to
some of the passengers. Again, it is vain to hope
that even the best of cabins should equal in comfort
or cubical space the worst of bedrooms, and an
admiral must often content himself with a sleeping-
place which no upper servant would accept on shore.
But then everything should be done to minimise this
inevitable discomfort, whereas berths are usually
made narrower than need be, on the pretext that
otherwise their occupants would be rolled out in
rough weather, and the bed-clothes are almost in-
variably too narrow even for these coffin-like berths.
Above all, some arrangement should be made for
those who are dependent for sleep on quiet at night,
and are willing to pay for this blessing. If it be too
much to expect that separate cabins should be pro-
vided in comparatively secluded parts of the ship,
at least the hours for putting out lights should be
strictly regulated, the smoking-room placed where
the noisy talk in it is least likely to disturb others,
the ship's bell hung at a distance from the passengers'
cabins, and so forth. Nor have I ever been able to
understand why decks, constantly drenched by the
sea, need to be washed every day, when uncarpeted
floors do not, or why they should be washed (and
sometimes holy-stoned) two hours before any pas-
senger wishes to be awakened in the morning.
Luxurious as the decorations and fittings are on
board ocean-going steamers and public steam-yachts,
there is still much room for improvement in the
accommodation in respect of sleeping-quarters,

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 295

ventilation, and quiet. On the other hand, I have
generally found the food excellent as well as abun-
dant, and the dinner sent up for hundreds of people
from a galley not many feet square, with the ship
tossing about like a restive horse, would put to
shame the performances of professed cooks in grand
houses, with their spacious kitchens, sculleries, larders,
and store-rooms fitted up regardless of expense. It
is wonderful, too, how the service is carried on under
the greatest difficulties, and how well the officers
combine their nautical duties with kind attention to
passengers.

Some of these remarks apply even to private
yachts, where of course less discipline is maintained,
and, the party being small, each member of it is
more at the mercy of the others for enjoyment by
day and quiet at night. Not that I can speak from
personal knowledge of the palace-yachts of many
hundred tons burden, now fitted up as floating
hotels, and crowded with people from the smartest
circles in London. My two longest yachting cruises
were made as far back as 1854 and 1859, in sailing-
yachts of no more than 168 and 118 tons burden
respectively. These cruises were of several weeks'
duration, but of no special interest. In the first of
these years I joined the yacht (the Gltana) at Kiel,
which I reached vid Hamburg, and our intention was
to sail up the Baltic, and anchor behind the British
fleet ofi" Cronstadt. Unfortunately, the captain or
owner was deluded by a report of Kussian gunboats
lurking along the Prussian coast in siearch of such

296 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

prey as ourselves, and it was decided to return by
Copenhagen across the North Sea, in which we
buifeted for ten days against a head-wind, making
for the Pentland Firth. Here the tide was running
eastward so rapidly, that it actually drifted us back-
ward while the yacht was sailing against it with a
fair wind at the rate of about seven knots an hour.
Thence we came south, by the outward passage
through the Hebrides, in time for the Kingstown
Regatta, and ended our cruise at Holyhead. In 1859
I undertook to coach a reading-party on board a
yacht called the Albatross, belonging to Mr. Brassey,
father of the present Lord Brassey — himself a mem-
ber of the party. We sailed from Cowes to Inverness,
passed down the Caledonian Canal, and anchored off
Raasay, where I had already stayed with the owner,
Mr. Rainy. The programme of our cruise, which
had embraced a visit to the Orkney and Shetland
Islands, the outer Hebrides, and possibly to Iceland
or St. Kilda, was now cut short by a continuance of
rough weather, lasting all through the autumn, and
culminating in the famous storm in which the Royal
Charter foundered. After coasting along Rosshire,
therefore, we ran southward for Belfast — where
bands of " Revivalists " happened so be parading the
streets — paid a flying visit to the Giant's Causeway,
and were driven by a hard gale across the Channel to
Liverpool. In 1873 I '^^s on board another yacht
of Lord Brassey's to witness the Naval Review in
honour of the Shah of Persia, and met with a curious
little adventure. The tug-steamer which had us in

FOREIGN TOURS AND VOYAGES 297

tow dragged the yacht directly across the broadside
of the Sultan, then on the point of firing a salute.
The result was that we were plentifully besprinkled
with pebble powder, some pellets of which tore holes
through a strong tarpaulin, while others struck many
of us on deck with a lighter impact, burning away
some of my own back-hair and of Brassey's whiskers.
Again, in 1881, I made a sea-trip in the Sunbeam,
alone with Lord Brassey, from the Solent to Aberyst-
with, encountering head-winds all the way, so that,
for want of time, I could not go on with him to
Oban. All these cruises, including that in the
Sunbeam, were made under sail, but I afterwards
took a short voyage in a steam-yacht with Mr.
William Mackinnon, along the West coast of Scot-
land. I cannot help adding, with the pride of a
landsman who cannot boast of a strong digestion,
that in all my experiences of the sea, covering a
considerable fraction of my life, and diversified by
several memorable storms, I was never once sea-
sick.

CHAPTER XIV

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND

Charms of English scenery — The most beautiful districts in England
— Riding-tours and driving-tours — Hints for travellers on horse-
back — English hotels, and maps — Tours in the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland — Braemar — Raasay.

It is often said that Englishmen of the present day
know much less of their own country than English-
men 01 former generations. The reproach is not
quite unfounded, but this comparative ignorance
admits of more than one excuse. The facilities of
foreign travelling are of course infinitely greater than
they were a century, or even half a century ago,
and the change of scene, air, diet, habits, language,
and associations, to be gained by foreign travelling,
makes it more profitable as well as more amusing to
a large class of holiday-seekers. Even for those who
seldom go abroad, railway journeys at express speed
offer less opportunities for studying the local features
of a county or district than leisurely stages by coach
or postchaise, and the roadside inns, which figured
so largely in early novels from " Tom Jones" down-
wards, no longer furnish incidents for the amusement
of travellers — unless, indeed, of bicyclists, for whose
benefit many of them have been revived. Yet

England, or rather Great Britain, certainly deserves

298

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND 299

more attention from English tourists than it receives,
and would probably be far more visited by foreigners,
but for the fact that it is not a " passage-country,"
and leads nowhere, except to America. In the first r,
place, it possesses in its castles, its abbeys, its cathe- :
drals, its country-houses, and its parish churches, an j
amount and variety of architectural and antiquarian ;
interest to which, I believe, no other part of Europe, i
equal in area, can pretend. There are, no doubt,
castles, abbeys, and cathedrals on a larger scale to be
seen in France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, but
they are far less closely grouped, and, on the
whole, far less carefully preserved. The mere factr
of their standing clear of mean houses, and being I
surrounded with beautiful " closes," gives English
cathedrals a great advantage, in effect, over their
Continental rivals, while the parish churches of
England, as a whole, have no competitors on the
Continent. As for the ancestral mansions thickly
distributed over every English county, and often
standing in the midst of ancestral parks, they are
really unique as stately dwelling-houses, whatever
superiority in grandeur of design may be claimed for
a limited number of foreign chdteaux and palaces.
The chief reason of this difference probably is that
England has never been conquered for more than
eight hundred years, and that none of our Civil Wars
has been carried out with the ruthless barbarity and
wholesale destruction which desolated Germany in
the seventeenth century and France during several
periods of its history.

300 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

But, apart from architectural beauties, I submit
that England is, on the whole, the most picturesque
of European countries, except in regard of those
beauties which depend on the height of moun-
tains. When I have returned to England from
the Continent or from America, I have felt that
I was passing from a deserted saloon or ballroom
into a well-furnished drawing-room — from landscapes
of which the ground-colour was brown into land-
scapes of which the ground-colour is green. Whether
it be due to soil, climate, the prevailing mode of
cultivation, the distribution of village homesteads,
or to more recondite causes, England presents a
series of rural pictures, sober in colouring, but rich
in the harmony of picturesque elements, which
may be sought in vain on the wide plains and
plateaux of Central Europe. I have sometimes
fancied that it must have been even more attractive
to a landscape painter during the Wars of the Roses,
when all its mediaeval buildings were still intact, but
with the bloom of decay upon them ; when its forests
spread over vast areas now covered with populous
towns ; and when Lancashire, for instance, had not
been disfigured by factory chimneys blackening the
very herbage with smoke. But we must remember
that all the Tudor and Jacobean manor-houses have
since been erected ; that such places as Oxford and
Bath were then comparatively squalid little towns ;
that plantations have beautified some dreary tracts,
while the destruction of forests has spoiled the
native charms of more favoured districts : and that

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND 301

cultivation, after all, dots a country with farm-houses
and cottages which are not the least ornamental part
of its furniture.

But, while objects of architectural interest are
distributed pretty evenly over England, there is, of
course, no such approach to equality in scenery. If
I were asked to select the most beautiful districts
in England proper, I should have no difficulty in
excluding most of the Eastern and several of the
Midland Counties. Beginning with the Southern
Counties, 1 should name Surrey, parts of Sussex,
especially those bordering on Surrey and Hampshire,
the New Forest, the border-region of Dorsetshire,
Somersetshire, and Devonshire, the whole of Devon-
shire, and the hill districts of Somersetshire, including
Exmoor and the Quantock Hills. In the Midland
Counties, between the Thames and the Humber, I
should pick out the Cotswold Hills, the whole border-
line adjoining Wales, Derbyshire, and Sherwood
Forest in Nottinghamshire. In the North of Eng-
land, the first place must be assigned to the Lake
District, whose finest peaks and valleys are so well
known that few care to explore the charming sub-
Alpine country which surrounds them. Next would
come the Dales of West Yorkshire — perhaps the
most old-world corner of England, until it was
invaded by the Midland Eailway — and lastly the
Cheviot Hills, guarding the Scotch border. The
Eoman Wall, running along a ridge between New-
castle and Carlisle, should perhaps be added, as
combining the highest antiquarian interest with a

302 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

succession of splendid views both northward and
southward.

Having made comparatively few excursions to
foreign countries during the last forty years, I have
had the more leisure to explore my own, and, though
I have never thought of doing so methodically, I
have probably seen more of the United Kingdom
than most of my travelled friends. Being once
challenged to reckon up the private houses in which
I had stayed in England, Scotland, Wales, and
Ireland, I was amused to find that they amounted
to 400, scattered all over the United Kingdom, the
great majority being residences of modest size, and
very few of the palatial order. I should be at a loss
to make out a similar list of hotels, but it would
certainly be a long one. Many of these houses
were resting-places on riding or driving expeditions,
which I have always enjoyed, and recommend to
people who like moving about independently, and
do not require constant social excitement. When
I was on the Western Circuit, as I have already
mentioned, I twice rode from London to Exeter,
and about half-way back, on my own horse, stopping
at the various assize towns, and sometimes paying
visits en route. I have constantly ridden and driven
over the whole intervening country, and could hardly
find myself out of my bearings at any point between
Canterbury and Hastings on the East, and Dartmoor
and llfracombe on the West. I have seen very
little of Cornwall, and there are parts of Devon-
shire, as well as of Kent, which I have not explored.

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND 303

but I have crossed and recrossed in all directions
the rest of the Southern counties — Surrey and
Sussex, Berkshire and Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset-
shire, and Somersetshire. I once rode from Surrey
to Holnicote, near Minehead, by way of the Hamp-
shire Downs, Chard, Blackdown, Brendon Hill, and
Dunkerry Beacon, and hunted on the same horse
with the Exmoor staghounds. Being advised to
follow the lead of some knowing local rider, I
picked out an elderly man on a stout clever-
looking horse, and found that I was under the
guidance of Jack Eussell, the famous hunting-
parson. In the summer of another year, I started
to ride from London to Scotland along the high
ground constituting the backbone of England,
intending to proceed by the Carter Fell Pass
towards Jedburgh and Edinburgh, but was stopped
by the lameness of my horse at Buxton. I have
also traversed many of the Westmoreland, Cumber-
land, and Yorkshire hills on horseback, besides
driving in a dogcart on three occasions from Oxforil
to Kendal or Keswick, and crossing the "Pennine
range" backwards and forwards by almost every
practicable road between Leeds and Teesdale.
One of these, from Kirkby Stephen into the head
of Swaledale and down to Eichmond, must be one
of the very wildest and least-frequented carriage-
tracks in England. In 1880, after staying with
Lord Bowen near Llangollen, I rode across hill
and dale by a rough "switchback" route to Lord
Aberdare's house in Glamorganshire, and have made

304 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

frequent riding-tours in such woodland districts as
the New Forest, Sherwood Forest, the Chiltern Hills,
and the Cotswold Hills, which strongly contrast
with the neighbouring Mendip Hills in being far
better watered and far better timbered. As I was
exploring the so-called " Dukeries " in Sherwood
Forest with a friend, I happened to say that I
supposed it would be converted before long into
a national park, to which he replied : "I am sure
I do not know why it should, so long as we can
get Dukes to keep it up for us at their own ex-
pense, and leave the gates open."

Perhaps no county in England, and certainly no
other county of its size, offers such a variety of quiet
and beautiful rides as the county of Surrey, with its
parallel ranges of chalk and sand hills, its remains
of the ancient forest on the wealden clay, its richly-
coloured landscapes, its numerous heaths, its lonely
tarns modestly called "ponds," its hollow lanes,
its secluded nooks once haunted by gypsies or
smugglers and now by artists, its never-failing
bridle-tracks, and its ever-open -bridle-gates. For
many of its attractions, and especially for those
which make it so delightful a riding-ground, as
well as for the scarcity of great country-houses,
Surrey is really indebted to the poverty of its soil.
Had it been as fertile as the fen-country or the
vale of Taunton, it would have been parcelled out
and enclosed centuries ago by Norman barons or
monks, interlaced with hedgerows, and intersected
with ditches. As it is, there are many spots in it.

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND 305

witliin twenty-five miles of London, which retain
almost all their old - world seclusion, and I have
myself seen black game on the skirts of Leith Hill
and Hindhead, while one was taken alive during a
fire on a heathery but well-frequented common, near
Peper Harow, not many years ago. If the charm of
quiet riding consists in a combination of picturesque
views, fine air, and soft ground, it would be diflS-
cult to surpass three rides of twenty or thirty
miles each, which may be enjoyed within the
borders of Surrey, though, in one case, the starting-
point is Windsor, in Berkshire. This ride is across
Windsor Park, by Ascot and Swinley Park, thence
by solitary avenues of fir said to have been cut
for George III. during his period of insanity, along
Chobham Ridges to Fox Hills, over Aldershot, and
Farnham. It is from a point on this route that,
according to some military wag, you may survey
the whole career of the British ofl&cer, from the
cradle to the grave. He starts at the Orphan
Asylum, near Bagshot, and proceeds successively
to Wellington College, Sandhurst, Aldershot, and
the Stafi" College. Soon afterwards, falling into
evil courses, he finds his way into the County
Prison (not in view), and thence into the Woking
Convict Prison, from which, losing his reason, he
is transferred to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic
Asylum, where he dies, and is buried (or cremated)
at the Woking Cemetery, leaving children, who re-
commence the vicious circle at the Orphan Asylum.
The second route is from Reigate to Farnham along

u

3o6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the North Downs as far as Guildford, and onwards along
the narrow ridge of the Hog's Back. The last is from
Reigate along the line of sandhills and intervening
heaths connecting Leith Hill, Holmbury, Hascombe,
and Hindhead, whence the excursion might be pro-
longed through a fine and open country into Sussex
or Hampshire. The late Sir William Erie, Chief-
Justice of the Common Pleas, who lived on the
southern slopes of Hindhead, was an enthusiastic
admirer of this region, and, though no great rider,
loved to range over it on horseback. Once, when
he was Judge of Assize at Guildford, and was riding
home alone across Hindhead, he met with a little
adventure which he related to me as more char-
acteristic of Ireland than of England. It happened
that certain recent enclosures on the hillside had
caused much discontent among the "hut-men," and
provoked reprisals in the nature of agrarian outrage,
the authors of which had been tried before his
brother-Judge at Guildford. In the wildest part
of the road, he was accosted by two or three rough-
looking men, who spoke of these lawless acts with
ill-concealed sympathy, but added that he was
known as a friend of the poor, and assured him
that his property would be safe against injury ;
after which, they disappeared in the dusk. It was
he who erected the cross of Cornish marble which
now crowns the summit of Hindhead. Here three
murderers had been gibbeted at the end of the
last century, and a stone by the roadside, a little
way below, still commemorates the actual scene

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND 307

of the murder by a sadly grim inscription. The
benevolent feelings of Sir William Erie were shocked
that so ill-omened a memory should be thus per-
petuated, and so, by way of exorcising the evil
spirit, he surrounded his own monument with short
texts in Latin and English, suggestive of hope,
peace, and salvation.

But, as every one knows, neither the broken
woodland country of Surrey, nor the choice hunting
country of the Midlands, with plenty of stiflF but
not breakneck fences, is the best country for that
class of horsemen who enjoy galloping on elastic
turf, at a high level, and with extensive views.
In these respects, I know of no country to match
the Sussex, Berkshire, and Wiltshire Downs, to
which should be added that region of Dorsetshire
comprised in the Autumn Manoeuvres of 1898, and
combining the attractions of open Downs with those
of well-kept parks. Such riding cannot be found
in the so-called " Shires," where, however, large
grass fields are often connected, for miles together,
by gates known to local farmers and hunting-men.
A practised eye, too, will often discern signs of
old bridle-paths, not yet barred up, which a novice
would miss ; and if the novice should lose his way
in making a venture across fields, he may sometimes
find comfort in the old country maxim, "Where
there's ricks, there's gates." There is also a strong
presumption of there being a thoroughfare practi-
cable for horses between farm and farm, just as foot-
paths may generally be found leading across country

3o8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

from one parish church to another. Of course, no
one who really cares for riding would trot along
roads if he could find an equally short route across
country ; but it is worth noticing that good unbroken
turf is far more likely to be found at the sides of
the great trunk-roads of England, too broad for
their present trafiic, than along narrow cross-roads
and byways, and this especially holds good of the
Midland Counties. The main roads have the further
advantage that, so far as may be, they follow the
line of high ridges. As for the proper limit of a
day's journey in riding and driving tours, I should
be disposed to fix it at an average of twenty-five
miles. My own practice has been to make longer
journeys, and rest on alternate days, often at a
friend's house. No doubt a higher average may
be maintained by reducing the pace, and it is
certain that in the olden times men would ride
fifty or sixty miles a day for a week together, as
they still do in Australia, South Africa, and South
America. But the roadsters of those good old days
were specially bred for the purpose, and the roads
were not macadamised ; at all events, experience
shows that modern horses' legs will not stand
constant hammering over long distances, if they
are used all the year round. For heavy journeys,
the average pace should not greatly exceed seven
miles an hour, exclusive of stoppages, and, in driving
tours, it is good policy to go very gently uphill,
making up for lost time on level ground. I confess
to having always preferred friends' houses, as night-

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND 309

quarters, to country hotels. The difficulty is that
friends' houses are not distributed at convenient
distances all over England, but this difficulty may
be abated, in most parts of the country, by a very
simple expedient. My own plan was to drive on
thirty or forty miles from each comfortable halting-
place and fall back on it by train, leaving my
horse to rest until I rejoined it, or else to push
on by train on the first day to another comfortable
halting-place, and bring up my horse and trap on
the next or following day.

My experience of English inns is not, on the
whole, unfavourable, and I do not share the opinion
of those who think Continental hotels in every respect
superior. No doubt Switzerland, being largely fre-
quented by classes who insist on good treatment,
and are ready to pay for it, deserves a high reputa-
tion for hotel-keeping ; but there are many excellent
hotels, patronised by a somewhat different class, in
the hill districts of the Lake Country and Derby-
shire, not to speak of North Wales and the High-
lands. It is the ordinary English country towns
which are so often very inferior in hotel accom-
modation to similar towns on the Continent, having
a number of thriving public-houses, but not one
hostelry with a standard of comfort above that
required by commercial travellers. It may truly be
said that a refined cuisine is hardly to be expected
where there is no regular demand for meals at stated
hours, except on market days, but only a chance of
casual travellers calling in a hurry for mutton-chops ;

3IO MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

whereas in a French provincial town it is common
for the lawyer, the doctor, the notary public, and
the local officials, to breakfast or dine at a table
d'hdte. But this will not excuse the sad deficiency
of nearly all our second-class hotels in the neatness,
appointments, and, above all, the quiet of bedrooms.
For instance, in all my journeys about England, I
never remember to have seen an inkstand and
blotting-book in an hotel bedroom, yet an expendi-
ture of a few shillings on this and one or two other
little requisites might give hotel bedrooms a home-
like air, and save infinite trouble to visitors and
servants. Again, why should the wine-card of an
English hotel ofi"er so miserable a choice of third-rate
wines at prices threefold of their cost, or why should
visitors have to pay twice over for attendance ? On
the other hand, good beer and fairly good tea are
almost always to be had at English inns, the stabling
is usually good, and I have always found ostlers
honest and kind to horses, especially if you show by
your manner that you are likely to "behave like
a gentleman." The scarcity of inns in high and
healthy positions is hardly creditable to England.
Buxton is an exception in this respect, but outside
Buxton it would be difficult to name ten really
comfortable hotels at a level of five hundred feet
or more above the sea. The Lake country does not
possess one such hotel — for the village of Shap,
though nearly one thousand feet high, cannot ofiier
comfort to visitors ; and I know of none that can
be compared with the better seaside hotels in the

TRAVEL IN ENGLAND 311

elevated districts of the Yorkshire Dales, Exmoor,
Dartmoor, the Cotswold Hills, the Chiltern Hills, or
the chalk Downs of the Southern Counties. There
are ideal sites for quiet and luxurious health-resorts
on the beautiful Surrey Downs within twenty miles
of London, and yet there is not a single hotel on
that high and picturesque table-land suitable for the
myriads of wealthy people inhabiting the West End,
for whom sumptuous accommodation is provided at
watering-places along the coasts of Kent, Sussex,
Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight.

There are other drawbacks in English road-
travelling which might be easily remedied, and
ought not to have been tolerated so long. For
example, the very convenient system of sending
luggage by post which has prevailed for many years
on the Continent has yet to be established in Eng-
land. Sign-posts, which are to be found on out-of-
the-way footpaths in Switzerland and Germany, are
often wanting just where they are most needed on
English cross-roads, and even the great high-roads.
The name of a village is hardly ever painted up
at the entrance to it, though it may generally be
found over the Post Ofl&ce, if there happens to be
one. Our Ordnance Maps, on the one-inch scale,
excellent as they are in their way, show no difference
between highways and byways, green cart-tracks or
mere farm roads, and metalled roads suitable for
carriages with springs. For this reason, it is con-
stantly necessary to question country people, and,
in doing so, it is a good rule to avoid leading

312 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

questions, which are apt to be answered offhand,
and with a view to please the questioner. Thus,
instead of asking "Does that road lead to A.?"
in which case the reply will probably be in the
affirmative, it is better to ask " Where does that
road lead ? " and to follow up this question with
others showing a knowledge of the map, which may
elicit the more detailed information required by a
stranger. Until lately, very little reliance could be
placed on guide-books by any traveller exploring the
country on foot or horseback, but this requirement
has now been supplied by Messrs. Jenkinson, Badde-
ley, and others, whose handbooks give minute and
accurate directions even for crossing mountain passes
where the path is invisible. Still, where mists are
liable to come on and landmarks are few, no one can
dispense with a compass. By the aid of one, I have
steered my way in a dog-cart across high and desolate
Yorkshire moors near Malham Tarn, where no wheel-
track could be seen, and, for want of one, farmers
and huntsmen have lost their way on the South
Downs very near their own homes.

Being a sportsman's paradise, Scotland is perhaps
better known to Englishmen than England itself
My own acquaintance with it is that of a tourist or
health-seeker, and there are certain districts which I
have never traversed, such as the central parts of
Eoss-shire and Inverness-shire, the outer Hebrides,
and the region about Ben Alder, so graphically
described by Stevenson in "Kidnapped." Other-
wise, I may claim a tolerably wide general knowledge

TRAVEL IN SCOTLAND 313

of it from the English border up to the Shetland
Islands, and a special knowledge of Deeside and the
Grampian range. There can, of course, be no com-
parison between the Scotch Highlands and Switzer-
land in the grandeur of their mountains and the
beauty of their valleys, but they possess one advan-
tage for tourists seeking fine air and health rather
than an arena for mountaineering prowess. Nothing,
it is true, can be more invigorating than the climate of
a Swiss glacier, which must of necessity be on a high
level, and on which the air, instead of being heated
by the earth, comes up refrigerated from a surface
of ice. But, after all, the great majority of Swiss
tourists spend all their nights and most hours of
their days in comparatively low valleys, some of
them so confined and insalubrious that goitre and
cretinism prevail among the inhabitants. In the
Highlands, on the contrary, if you are not on a
mountain, you are very often on an open moor,
swept by health-giving winds which the mountains
are not steep enough, or high enough, or far enough
apart, to intercept. This is an advantage which the
Highlands also possess, as compared with the English
Lake District, the mountains of which are, on the
average, much steeper, and grouped much closer
together, superior in form, but inferior in colouring.
A special drawback in Scotch hill-climbing is that
great expanses of mountain and moor are reserved
as deer forests, and guarded against trespassers by
keepers during most of the tourist season, whereas
the fells of Westmoreland and Cumberland are prac-

314 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

tically left open, or crossed by stone fences which a
tourist is free to climb over. Though deerstalking
is certainly a selfish form of recreation, so far as it
involves shutting up whole mountains and vast tracts
of moor against the public, and though some High-
land proprietors have certainly pushed their rights
too far, I think the grievance has been somewhat
exaggerated. What mainly concerns the public
interest is the preservation of footpaths, especially
across passes connecting the heads of two glens, and
here good service has been rendered by the Highland
Association and a similar body in the Lake District.
As for mountain ascents in Scotland, there are few
who care to make them nowadays, except where
there is an undisputed right of way, as there is up
Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis, or Lochnagar. Unless
landlords could be compelled to make smooth and
easy tracks up nameless mountains, not many tourists
would be found to climb them, whatever the law
might be, plunging laboriously through bog and
heather, of which sportsmen think little in the
pursuit of game.

The Highlands and islands of Scotland are so full
of beauties, distributed equally between the coasts
and the interior, that it would be hopeless to rank
them in order of merit. If I were asked to name
the features of scenery which specially dwell in my
own memory, I should be disposed to begin with
Cape Wrath, the grandest headland in Great Britain,
and only to be matched by the cliffs of Donegal.
Coming southward along the West coast, 1 should

TRAVEL IN SCOTLAND 315

then single out Loch Hourn as the sternest and
finest of all the sea-lochs, the jagged peaks of
the Coolin Hills in Skye, and the equally chaotic
blocks of granite which crown the summits of Goat
Fell in Arran. Among inland scenes, none can
surpass in beauty the well-known district of Loch
Katrine and the Trossachs, or certain points on the
course of the Tay ; but I should place in the same
class with these the ravine of the Findhorn River
hemmed in by its granite walls, the precipices which
flank the eastern side of Lochnagar, and those which
overhang the lonely waters of Loch Avon. The last
two are most accessible from Braemar, which may
well be called the Engadine of Great Britain, and
which is one of the few inland places frequented by
visitors for the sake of its climate alone. It stands
on a sloping plateau overlooking the Dee Valley, 1 100
feet above the sea, being the highest village, except
Tomintoul, in the island. Buxton is but 100 feet
lower, and there are inns on Exmoor and Dartmoor
which are still higher ; but the Braemar air owes
its specially dry and bracing quality to its coming
across treeless granite mountains which tap the rain-
clouds as they sweep over. The glens in the West
of Scotland are richer in vegetation, by virtue of
their heavy rainfall, and some of the Western moun-
tains are bolder in form ; but there is something
imposing in the almost trackless mass of the Gram-
pians between the valleys of the Dee and the Spey ;
and, however tame in outline they may be, as seen
from without, they turn very precipitous faces to-

3i6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

wards each other. The Queen was extremely well
advised when she fixed her Highland home in this
district ; and, if it were not protected by the ex-
clusive policy of the proprietors, it would soon be
overspread by vulgar jerry-built villas, like Ilfra-
combe or North Malvern.

Braemar possesses a further charm in the sim-
plicity of life which still prevails there, and which
I have enjoyed during as many as fifteen or sixteen
summer visits. But neither this nor any part of the
Highlands is well suited for riding or driving tours.
The vast expanses of moor are much too rough and
boggy to be traversed at anything above a foot's
pace, there are hardly any bridle-paths, and the
stable accommodation is much below the English
standard. The great roads, it is true, though few
and far between, are well kept, and by no means
unduly steep, even in mountainous districts. The
fact is, that the worst road-ascents in Great Britain
are to be found in counties like Devonshire, where
it is just possible to go up hill and down dale with-
out resorting to engineering skill, and where the
old pack-road's have simply been widened into the
modern carriage-ways. In Scotland, as in Switzer-
land, the mountains are too high for this ; even
General Wade had to circumvent them as best he
could, and his successors in road-making have
adopted the easiest gradients of which the ground
admits.

I have less acquaintance with the Hebrides than
with the mainland of Scotland, though I have twice

TRAVEL IN SCOTLAND 317

visited two of the finest — Skye and Arran. The
former contains an unusual proportion of dreary-
scenery ; but in the Coolin Hills, Loch Coruisk,
the Storr Rock, and Quiraing, it possesses features
of interest which fully justify its fame. The small
island of Raasay, between Skye and the West coast,
was in almost as primitive a state, when I stayed
there in 1857, as it had been in the days of Dr.
Johnson. The house of the laird (Mr. Rainy) re-
mained almost unchanged ; there was no other
resident gentleman except the minister ; no doctor
had set foot on the island for many years ; and,
though mutton and game were plentiful, the islanders,
three or four hundred in number, were dependent
not only for beef but also for bread on steamers
from Glasgow, which lay off the little jetty twice
a-week in summer and discharged packages into a
boat, but, I believe, ceased to run in winter. Once
in the house, perhaps drenched with spray, a visitor
found true old-fashioned hospitality ; and I par-
ticularly remember the institution of " hot-pot," a
savoury concoction of meat, game, and condiments,
which always seemed to be kept ready on the
kitchen fire, and was brought up at the shortest
possible notice to restore warmth and vitality. The
luxuriance of the fuchsias round the house con-
trasted pleasantly with the wildness of the back-
ground.

CHAPTER XV

IRELAND

Visits to Ireland — Study of the Irish Land Question — Reminiscences
of the Vice-Regal Lodge — The " Castle-ayatem " — Phoenix Park
murders — Their influence on the Home Rule movement — My own
contributions to Unionist organisation and literature — "Plain
Facts about Ireland " — The Irish Local Government Act — Eflfect
of the Home Rule movement on political friendships.

My first visits to Ireland, beginning with 1845,
were for the sake of enjoying the scenery or the
hospitality of friends. In my opinion it cannot be
compared with Scotland, or even with England, in
natural beauties, and is not unfairly described as an
unattractive picture in a handsome frame. A great
part of the interior is much duller and more devoid
of striking features than our Midland Counties, but
there is a belt of most picturesque country round a
great part of the coast, including the Wicklow
Mountains, the Mourne Mountains, the environs of
the Giant's Causeway, the whole of Donegal, Conne-
mara, much of Limerick, Killarney, and the other
highlands of Kerry, extending into the South- West
of Cork. Before railways were developed, most of
these districts were traversed by Bianconi's cars, and
nearly fifty years ago tickets for circular tours in
Ireland might be taken at reasonable prices. I made

one of these tours in 1852, and reached the most

318

IRELAND 319

westerly point of Ireland on the promontory beyond
Dingle, where I stayed with a relation. The cheap-
ness of provisions at Dingle in those days before
the spread of regular communication would now be
thought incredible. 1 was assured, on trustworthy
authority, that a pair of chickens just good enough to
be put on the table might be got for fourpence or
less, and the price of eggs, which I have forgotten, was
on a like scale. The fowls simply multiplied like
the people, and there was no market for the surplus.
No one could pass through such a country, even
as a tourist, without carrying away a strong impression
of the contrast between it and England, but it was
not until 1869 that I attempted to see it with the
eyes of a foreign observer. The Irish Church Act
had just been passed, and Mr. Gladstone's First Irish
Land Bill was known to be impending, when my old
friend Mr. F. W. Gibbs and I visited the North of
Ireland, with the view of gaining information on
various aspects of the Land Question. We armed
ourselves with good introductions, and though neither
of us was foolish enough to imagine that we could
master in a few weeks problems which had puzzled
experts for years or generations, we gained enough
knowledge at first hand to enable us to understand
and check the evidence collected in blue-books.
Both of us published the results of our inquiry,
Gibbs devoting himself chiefly to an exposition of the
Ulster custom, while I essayed to present a com-
pendious review of the whole subject in its historical
and agrarian aspects, followed by proposals for

320 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

practical legislation. This review originally appeared
in a volume called " Eecess Studies," but lias since
been re-published in my " Political Studies." The
distinctive feature of its constructive portion is a
suggestion for a Domesday-book survey of all Ireland,
for the purpose of ascertaining and registering once
for all the value of landlords' and tenants' interests
on all estates ; this valuation to be made under
conditions and by processes there indicated in a
general way. This judicial assessment being once
made, it was an essential part of the scheme that no
tenant should be liable to disturbance without pay-
ment of the full value of his tenant right, and that
no further agreements between landlord and tenant
should be valid in law unless embodied in written
contracts. I am still of opinion that a settlement of
the Irish land question on these broad principles
would have been practicable, equitable, and lasting.
But the time for it has long since passed. Instead of
following the precedent set by Stein and Hardenberg,
and gradually establishing a system of single owner-
ship, Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues deliberately
adopted a system of dual ownership to which there
is no parallel in the civilised world, sacrificing the
future to the present, and destroying all hope of a
stable equilibrium in Irish land-tenure, except so far
as the Irish tenant may become his own landlord by
purchase.

During Lord Spencer's first Irish Viceroyalty, I
was often his guest at the Vice-regal Lodge, and had
many opportunities of conversing with persons con-

IRELAND 321

cerned in the government of Ireland. He was also
kind enough to discuss Irish affairs very freely with
me, and to admit me behind the scenes of what is
called " Dublin Castle." Now, I am quite aware that
Dublin Castle has been studiously represented, if not
as the stronghold of English oppression, yet as a
focus of corruption and abuses ; nor am I prepared to
deny that in past times it was open to charges of the
latter kind. But nothing that I saw or heard would
justify a belief that it is still open to them; much less,
that the abolition of the Lord-Lieutenancy would be
in the interest either of the United Kingdom or of
Ireland. When this measure was contemplated by
Lord Russell and other Liberals of the old school, it
recommended itself as part and parcel of the policy
of assimilation whereby the Irish Channel was to be
gradually bridged over, and all badges of difference
obliterated. That policy has now been abandoned
for the counter-policy of special legislation for
Ireland ; and the abolition of the Viceroyalty would
destroy not only a standing monument of Impe-
rial rule, but a valuable instrument for mediation
between Irish and English opinion. Torrents of
abuse have been poured upon "the Castle" by Irish
demagogues, and it is quite possible that some useful
reforms might still be introduced into Castle bureau-
cracy. But the broad fact remains that " the Castle "
really consists of a few officials, mostly both honest
and able, far more accessible to Irish influences than
Under-Secretaries or clerks at the Home Office, and
traditionally disposed to modify Imperial instructions

322 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

so as to conciliate Irish prejudice. The besetting sin
of " the Castle " is not its despotism but its weakness ;
and since the recent extension of local self-govern-
ment in Ireland — an experiment which no one had
demanded and from which no one expects the least
benefit — it has become vitally necessary to strengthen
the power of the Central Executive, whether it be
lodged in Dublin Castle, or distributed, as in France,
among provincial authorities.

As for the allegation that Ireland is administered
through Englishmen, the fact is that a much larger
proportion of Irishmen is to be found in the English
Civil Service than of Englishmen in the Irish Civil
Service. While the Lord Chief-Justice of England
and two or three other English Judges are Irishmen,
every Judge on the Irish Bench is of Irish birth ; the
official staff of every Irish Board consists almost
entirely of Irishmen ; and if the Under-Secretary has
sometimes of late been an Englishman or a Scotchman,
it is worthy of remembrance that the last Under-
Secretary of purely Irish blood — a Eoman Catholic
of the old stock — was murdered in broad daylight by
hired Irish assassins in the Phoenix Park.

No one could be more admirably fitted than Lord
Spencer to fill the office of an Irish Viceroy. How-
ever much I may deplore his conversion to Home
Eule, I shall always hold that if Ireland could be
continuously governed by such men, as independent
of the Ministry in office as the Viceroys of India,
surrounded by a representative Irish Privy Council
with larger powers than " Dublin Castle " possesses.

IRELAND 323

and not vexatiously controlled from Westminster, tlie
whole aspect of the Irish question would be altered.
Lord Spencer may have had too much faith in the
Liberal panaceas for the ills of Ireland, but he was
a perfectly conscientious, public-spirited, and open-
minded man, always seeking and welcoming opinions
from persons of experience or ability, and never taking
an important step until he was convinced of its
wisdom. During his first Administration, his Chief
Secretaries were Mr. Chichester Fortescue and Lord
Hartington ; but in addition to his ofiicial advisers, he
was fortunate enough to possess a very honest and
able counsellor in the Irish Attorney-General, Mr.
Edward Sullivan, afterwards Master of the EoUs,
whose premature death facilitaced, to say the least,
the adoption of a Home Rule policy. His second
Administration was inaugurated, so to speak, by the
atrocious murder of Mr. Thomas Burke and Lord
Frederick Cavendish, whose presence on the spot
appointed for Burke's assassination was purely acci-
dental. The circumstances of this most dramatic
crime are now tolerably well known, but it is not
generally known that Lord Spencer had just returned
from a ride which, if prolonged in the direction which
he meant to have taken, would have brought him on
the scene of action as a witness, if it had not put
the murderers to flight. In the following winter,
I was staying at the Vice-regal Lodge, where the
strictest guard was still kept, and precautions en-
forced which strongly resembled a state of siege.
Most of the Lord-Lieutenant's retinue and guests.

324 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

including myself, were habitually armed with re-
volvers, the Vice-regal carriages were followed by
armed detectives on cars, and no one was allowed to
approach the Lodge after dark without giving the
pass- word or "countersign" of the day. At this
time the Phoenix Park assassins were still at large,
but I believe their names were known to the police
authorities, who patiently waited until one of them
should turn "Queen's evidence" — a part ultimately
played by the infamous Carey. I remember having
a conversation with a Dublin car-driver, who pro-
fessed the utmost horror of the murder, and particular
sympathy with Lord Frederick Cavendish, who could
have injured nobody, protesting with solemn adjura-
tions that no Dublin car-driver, like himself, could
have been concerned in the affair. I told him that
I could not feel equally sure of this, especially as his
countrymen were constantly shooting down men as
innocent as Lord Frederick : and I was so far risrht,
that a man of this very class afterwards confessed to
having driven the party.

I almost shrink from avowing it, and yet I have
not the smallest doubt, that while the immediate
effect of the Phoenix Park murders was a strong
Coercion Act, their ultimate effect was to stimulate
the Home Rule movement, and pave the way for
Mr. Gladstone's adoption of it. The man who openly
declared that the Clerkenwell explosion had sounded
the doom of the Irish Church, was just the man to
imagine that ruffians hired with. American money,
and unknown to respectable Irish Nationalists

IRELAND 325

(though afterwards worshipped as martyrs), were
true representatives of a misguided but genuine and
terribly earnest patriotism. I happen to know that
one of his most important coadjutors was more or
less under this illusion, and led to conclude that,
since Ireland had not been conciliated by the methods
in which Liberal politicians had so groundless a faith,
nothing remained except to let the Home Rulers
have their own way. Unless I am greatly deceived,
it was this hopeless sense of impotence, rather than
any belief in the capacity of the Irish for self-
government, which impelled other leaders of the
Liberal Party to follow Mr. Gladstone and Lord
Spencer like a flock of sheep, and so the task of
governing Ireland under the Union was abandoned
in a fit of administrative despair. Had these blind
guides been able to foresee even the immediate
future, perhaps "the great betrayal" would never
have taken place. But they did not foresee that
a new spirit would be roused among their country-
men superior to popularity -hunting and time-serving,
that a body of men called Liberal Unionists would
actually prefer being in power to being in office until
a time should come for a strong Unionist Govern-
ment, and that, under this Government, Ireland,
instead of breaking out into rebellion, would remain
quieter and apparently more contented than it has
been in the present century. One reason why they
did not foresee this is, that they mistook an exotic
and artificial agitation for an indigenous and spon-
taneous rising against intolerable oppression. The

326 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

fact is that Home Rule, like Fenianism, was mainly
got up and supported from America ; moonlighters,
agrarian murderers, and assassins (like Joe Brady
and his accomplices), were also paid out of American
subsidies, and, when these subsidies failed, both Irish
disaffection and Irish crime subsided in a highly
significant way.

During the last fifteen years I have been very
little in Ireland, and my knowledge of Irish affairs
has been derived from sources accessible to all, but
I have never lost a very warm interest in them.
Among the many papers or utterances that I have
published on Irish policy, I will mention some on
which I bestowed the greatest care. One entitled
" The Last Chapter of Irish History " was published
in 1880, after the rejection of Mr. Gladstone's Com-
pensation for Disturbance Bill, and before the Report
of Lord Bessborough's Commission. It contained a
short review of Irish agrarian legislation, a descrip-
tion of the reign of terror established by the Land
League, and an attempt to lay down the condi-
tions upon which alone a lasting settlement could be
effected. In the same year I delivered an Address
at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on " The
Land Systems of England and of Ireland." In
December 1881 I delivered another Address, after-
wards published, in the Hall of Merton College, on
"The Irish Land Act of 1881 : its origin and its
consequences," wherein I pointed out the radical
defects of that most unjust and unstatesmanlike
measure, but failed to forecast the heritage of con-

IRELAND 327

sequential injustice whicli has followed too surely
upon it. In May 1886 I addressed to the Times
a letter on " Home Eule and Justice to Ireland,"
designed to show that Home Eule, instead of being
a real benefit to its people, would, on the contrary,
be the greatest wrong that Great Britain could in-
flict upon them. In October 1886 I addressed
another letter to the Times on " The Grovernment
of Ireland under the Union," designed to show how
all the legitimate aims and aspirations of Irish
patriotism could be far better satisfied by a wise
development of Pitt's Irish policy, by " a vigorous
assertion of Imperial authority, combined with an
unprejudiced and sympathetic regard for Irish in-
terests and feelings." In this letter I did not shrink
from anticipating the heresy lately adopted by Mr.
Arthur Balfour. " Ireland is still a very backward
country, and messages of peace have not calmed
religious passion. Why not recognise facts, give up
the fiction of mixed education in elementary schools,
and endow a Catholic University ? It is too late
to pay the priests, or to renew the dependence of
Maynooth on an annual grant. But it is not too
late to place the highest education within the reach
of the Eoman Catholic laity on terms which they
will accept ; and, whether or not the boon should
elicit gratitude, it would be a substantial benefit to
Ireland."

In 1887 I headed a deputation from the Liberal
Unionist graduates of Oxford, who had joined the
Liberal Unionist graduates of Cambridge in an

328 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

address to Lord Hartington. This address had been
drawn up at Cambridge, and accepted by us without
alteration, as I duly informed Lord Hartington in
presenting it to him, in conjunction with Sir John
Seeley, at Devonshire House. Soon afterwards
(July 20, 1887) I contributed to the Liberal
Unionist an article on " The Classes and the
Masses," designed to show the hoUowness, as well
as the wickedness, of Mr. Gladstone's attempt to
set instinct above reason, and popular ignorance
against cultivated opinion — sometimes misguided, or
even selfish, but never quite fatuous and reckless.
In November 1887 I delivered a speech at Bath,
afterwards published by the Liberal Unionist Asso-
ciation, under the title of " The Real Meaning of
Home Rule and Coercion." In January 1888 I
delivered another speech at Oxford, deprecating the
immediate fusion of Liberal Unionists into the
Conservative Party, and claiming for them a right
to stand before the world as the legitimate " heirs
and representatives of the great historical Liberal
Party." In April 1888 I addressed to the Times
a letter on " Ireland a Nation," exposing the absurd
fallacy that Ireland is a disinherited nation, robbed
of its national independence by its English con-
querors. As that fallacy is not yet extinct, I will
venture to select one passage from this letter.
" ' Scotland a Nation ' is a sentiment which awakens
glorious memories ; but ' Ireland a Nation ' is simply
an unmeaning phrase. The consolidation of the
Irish provinces and regions under one settled

IRELAND 329

government lias been exclusively the work of
English monarchs and statesmen. The civil and
political liberties which Ireland now enjoys have
been conferred on it by England, and by England
alone. Neither trial by jury, nor Parliamentary J
representation, nor the freedom of the Press, nor
the Poor-Law, nor popular education, nor any privi-
lege of citizenship now common to Irishmen with
Englishmen, is an institution of Irish origin. They
were all imported from England, and there is not
one of them which is not grossly abused, at this
very moment, by Irishmen, who seem to consider
an incapacity for the honest exercise of civil rights
a title and qualification for the duties of national
self-government." In December 1888 I delivered
at Oxford an Address on " Unionism the Basis of
a National Party," on which I shall have more to
say hereafter. In May 1889 I was Chairman of the
Liberal Union Club dinner in London, when the late
Lord Derby was our guest, and spoke chiefly on the
hopelessly chimerical project of Home Eule with
limited liability. In November 1889 I delivered
a speech from the Chair at a Unionist dinner at
Oxford, in which I dwelt on the duty of Unionists
to support a Government, under whatever name,
"which should initiate Liberal measures in a Con-
servative spirit." In May 1890 I presided at a
great meeting in the Oxford Corn Exchange, where
Mr. Chamberlain was the speaker of the evening,
and my chief task was to provide an appropriate
prelude to his address. He was extremely well

330 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

received, and, in spite of threats, no disturbance
occurred to call for the interference of the police,
or of the " chuckers-out," of whom we had provided
a sufficient body in reserve, and whom I was amused
to find described in a private report on the arrange-
ments as " the party of order."

After the Home Eule controversy passed into a
less acute stage, I gladly withdrew from the political
arena, though I contributed two signed articles in
January and March 1893 to a series in the Oxford
Times, originated, I think, by Professor Dicey. The
subjects of these articles were " The Coming Home
Eule Bill: a last word to Unionists," and "Present
Aspects and Prospects of Home Rule." These two
articles contain my final views on Home Rule, and,
if that disastrous question should be revived, I could
wish to be judged by them. I also played a humble
part, by speech and pen, in rallying Liberal Unionists
to the support of Lord Valentia at the Oxford City
elections of 1892 and 1895 ; but, for the most part,
I have declined platform appearances, and held
aloof from political gatherings, during the last few
years. I am well aware that whatever I have said
or written on this latest phase of the Irish Question
is of purely ephemeral interest — committed to air
and inscribed on water, or " buried in the catacombs
reserved for old newspaper files." Nevertheless,
I will select a single passage from an article, not yet
mentioned, which appeared in the National Review
in 1888, and was entitled "Plain Facts about
Ireland." This article, as simple in its style as in

IRELAND 331

its title, was designed to correct in some degree the
gross ignorance which then prevailed, as it still
prevails, among ordinary talkative politicians on
subjects which form the very alphabet of the Irish
Question. The following extract contains a sum-
mary of its conclusions, based on grounds there
briefly stated, which seem to me even now worthy
of repetition and consideration. " We have seen,
in the first place, that Irish nationality is a past
that was never present ; that whatever sense of
national unity Ireland now possesses, and all its free
institutions, it owes to English rule ; that it never
had a national Parliament worthy of the name till
it was admitted to partnership in the Imperial
Parliament ; that its wise surrender of a nominal
legislative independence was not the nefarious in-
trigue conjured up by Mr. Gladstone, and was
justified by the results ; that Ireland has made great
progress in everything but loyalty under the Union,
and is now as truly self-governed as any part of
Great Britain ; that the Viceroy alty and the "Castle
system " are no monuments or instruments of oppres-
sion, but rather intermediate links between the
Central Executive and the Irish people ; that Ireland
actually enjoys and constantly abuses local franchises
and institutions nearly the same as those of Great
Britain ; that ' public opinion ' in the English sense
does not exist in Ireland ; and that if intermittent
' coercion ' has failed, the failure of conciliation has
been still more signal and significant. We have,
then, rapidly surveyed the essential conditions of

332 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

agrarian disorder in Ireland, and the chief measures
whereby it has been sought to remedy it at the
sacrifice of every principle except that of expediency.
We have seen that no Irish tenant can now be rack-
rented by his landlord, though he may be ground
down by the payment of an extortionate tenant-
right to his predecessor; that his judicial rent may
be lowered by a Court as prices go down, but cannot
be raised as prices go up ; that however much his
rent may be in arrear, he can obtain full compensa-
tion for improvements on quitting his farm, or sell
it to the highest bidder ; and that if he wishes to
buy it out-and-out from his landlord, he is enabled
to do so by the use of public credit, on such terms
that his yearly charge will be less than his old rent ;
in short, that he enjoys the protection of a one-sided
agrarian code framed expressly for his benefit, and
securing to him privileges unknown to his fellows
in the rest of the United Kingdom, on the Conti-
nent of Europe, in the Colonies, or in the United
States of America."

It only remains to be added that, during the
eleven years since this passage was penned, the
position of the Irish tenant has been still further
improved, partly at the expense of his much-
oppressed landlord, and partly at that of the State,
especially in the direction of purchase on easier
terms. As for " local franchises and institutions,"
which have now been assimilated more closely
than ever to those of Great Britain, it is to be
feared that a new and ruinous departure will have

IRELAND 23:i

to be recorded by the future historian. For, unless
Irish character be wholly changed, or Imperial
statesmanship is stiflfened into far more peremptory
action than has been displayed for many years,
I can see but one probable issue to Irish County
Councils. The safeguards devised to prevent their
robbing the landlords may prove effectual, but no
safeguards have been devised, or could prove
effectual, against their usurping political functions,
and becoming little Home Eule Parliaments, when
a fresh wave of revolutionary agitation sets in. If
this once comes about, I shall be surprised if the
next step is not a periodical reunion of representa-
tives from these Councils in Dublin ; one step more,
and we shall have a Home Rule Convention, loudly
clamouring for statutory recognition as an Irish
Parliament. Ten or twelve years ago, I always
felt, and often confessed, that I found it equally
impossible to conceive either that Home Rule would
be carried or that it would not be carried. Being
pressed to say what, after all, I thought might be
the issue, I used to reply that I feared Home Rule
might be introduced, bit by bit, in a form which
Irish Nationalists would recognise as adequate for
their ulterior purpose, but which could be repre-
sented to English Liberals, ignorant of Ireland, as
a mere reform of local government. I wish that
this prediction were not likely to come true, and
that a Unionist Government may not be found
to have surrendered the key of the Unionist
position.

334 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

This is not the place for an argumentative dis-
cussion of the Home Rule movement, the history of
which I was once urged to undertake. If I have not
seen my way to do so, it is partly because I am not
sure that we have yet seen the end of the move-
ment, and partly because, having avowed myself a
staunch Unionist from the first, and done all in my
power to withstand Home Rule, I could hardly
expect to be credited with the historical impartiality
which, nevertheless, I should have earnestly striven
to practise. It is possible to believe that a strong
case may be made out in favour of Home Rule — it is
even possible to believe that no speech yet delivered
and no pamphlet yet written has done full justice to
the strength of that case — and yet to hold that it
admits of an overwhelming reply, not only from an
Imperial point of view, but also, and still more, from
an Irish point of view. " The Case of England against
Home Rule " has been admirably stated by Professor
Dicey; "The Case of Ireland against Home Rule''
still remains to be stated, and would be far more
crushing, if stated ably, and, above all, without reserve.
It is a pity that no speech as telling, comprehensive,
and outspoken, as that of Lord Clare, in advocating
the Union in the interest of Ireland, has ever
been delivered against its wilful destruction. Even
staunch Unionists like Mr. Lecky, an acknowledged
master of the subject, have sometimes laid too much
stress on the connection of Home Rule with the Land
League, and the personal demerits of Nationalist
leaders — as if these were the chief reasons against

IRELAND 335

a Repeal of the Union, and as if under better leaders
the experiment might perhaps be safely tried, and
with some hope of success. For my own part, I
have yet to be convinced that Irish Nationalism has
ever had, or is ever likely to have, a better leader
than Parnell, if the object be to conduct a disastrous
revolution under constitutional forms. He instigated
men to wholesale robbery, it is true, and condoned, if
he did not defend, murder ; but this defiance of the
sixth and eighth commandments did not shock either
his Irish adherents or even his English allies. Some
of these, however, at the bidding of the " Noncon-
formist conscience," held up their hands in pious
horror, and actually forsook him, when he was found
to have committed a breach of the seventh com-
mandment.

Had I been challenged beforehand to name those
of my Liberal friends who would suddenly " find sal-
vation " in Home Eule, and those who would remain
faithful to Unionist principles as professed up to
1886 by the whole Liberal Party, I should assuredly
have made numerous and grievous mistakes. Even
now, I find it impossible to discern the lines along
which the cleavage took place. On both sides were
found men of apparently independent minds, of
moderate or " advanced " opinions, with a higher or
lower standard of political morality, and with greater
or less knowledge of Ireland. Of one thing, however,
I remain convinced — that very few English or Scotch
Home Rulers were honestly converted to a Home
Rule policy, except under the influence of political

336 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

fatalism. They scarcely affected to believe in its
merits or probable success, but they were induced to
regard it as inevitable, since the new Irish Franchise
had resulted in an enormous Home Kule majority,
and the people of Great Britain would no longer con-
sent (as they fancied) to support any Government
in the measures necessary to keep order in Ireland
under the Union. Grievous as this delusion was, and
pitiful as the creed on which it rested, it might have
been treated as a strange error of judgment on a con-
stitutional problem, and would not, in itself, have
justified that loss of confidence, and even of respect,
which has so deeply affected private friendship during
the last fourteen years. But the schism between
Home Rulers and Unionists has never been confined
to Academical differences of opinion about the merits
of Home Rule for Ireland, whether from an Imperial
or from an Irish point of view. As Home Rule had
been adopted by Mr. Gladstone and his followers
solely in deference to party exigencies, so it soon
appeared that party exigencies would require new
sacrifices of principle, until the larger section of the
Liberal party drifted further and further away from
the ancient Liberal moorings, adopting what may be
called a policy of Separation in all its forms. Foiled
in their first attempt to repeal the Union with
Ireland, its leaders shamelessly appealed to Separa-
tist passions in Scotland and Wales ; and not only
so, but were driven by a kind of fatal necessity into
something like an alliance with the forces of disorder
and of anarchy, of lawlessness and of crime. During

IRELAND 337

the crisis of the Free Church Secession in Scotland,
one of the seceding ministers is said to have publicly
offered up a prayer in the following words : " Lord,
pour out upon us more abundantly the spirit of
Disruption." That prayer, if not repeated by the
apostles of Home Rule, was certainly fulfilled in
their practice. Mr. Gladstone's sinister appeal to
the pride and prejudice of ignorance, his deliberate
attempt to poison the springs of public life by
stirring up the enmity of the " masses " against the
" classes," was perhaps his gravest lapse from patriot-
ism and statesmanship. It failed, indeed, in its
immediate object, but its evil effects are not yet
exhausted. It is easy to say that friendship ought
never to be disturbed by disputes about polities. So
it may be said that friendship ought never to be dis-
turbed by disputes about theology. But supposing
religion to be the supreme interest of two friends,
both good Protestants, and to have formed the main
subject of their unreserved conversation for many
years, with a full concurrence of sentiment in regard
to it ; and supposing one suddenly to announce his
intention of joining the Eoman Catholics, following
up the announcement by ostentatious homage to
Romish superstitions and unmeasured abuse of Pro-
testantism — what are we to say then ? Can mutual
confidence (not to speak of respect) remain unshaken,
can they continue to take sweet counsel together on
the questions nearest their hearts, can they keep up
the pretence of fundamental sympathy, while the
one is most earnestly striving to uphold the cause

Y

338 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

which the other is resisting to the death, and flinging
himself into the arms of men whom the other regards
with repulsion ? And yet the parallel is by no
means complete. For it would be a gross injustice
to compare the worst tenets of the most fanatical
Papist with those openly avowed and carried into
action by the evil spirits whom Mr. Gladstone sum-
moned to his aid, but could not lay at his will. No ;
it is possible, as I know by happy experience, for
personal friendship to survive such a shock, but not
for political friendship. So long as Home Rule was
a burning question, friends who took different sides
did wisely to avoid it as a forbidden subject. I
myself succeeded in never once being drawn into an
argument with a Home Rule friend. Only, now and
again, when driven into a corner, I have taken refuge
in the remark that some of my friends had joined
the Roman Catholics while some had joiued the
Home Rulers, and that, as I never discussed the
worship of the Virgin with the one, so I never dis-
cussed the worship of Parnell with the other.

CHAPTER XVI

OXFORD AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY

Election to Wardenship of Merton — Educational and social changes at
Oxford between 1850 and 1881 — Increase of "ladies' society,''
claim of degrees for women, growth of specialism, mitigation of
party-spirit, legislative weakness of the University — Position and
duties of a Head of a College — Character of modern under-
graduates.

Towards tlie end of 1881, Dr. Bullock Marsham,
then Warden of Merton, was attacked by an illness
which soon proved fatal. He was ninety-four and a
half years of age, and had held ofl&ce more than
fifty-four years, having been elected in 1826, at the
age of forty. No other Mertonian is known to have
attained so great an age during a College history of
six hundred years, and no other Wardenship ap-
proached to his in duration. Among notable Oxford
men of the present century, he ranked next in
longevity to Dr. Eouth, the venerable President of
Magdalen, who died in 1855, during his hundredth
year, but Dr. Macbride of Magdalen Hall, Dr. Symons
of Wadham, and Dr. Hawkins of Oriel — all of whom
I well remember — had passed the age of ninety when
they died. My predecessor was a kindly and cour-
teous old gentleman, more familiar with country life

than with Academical studies, but not without scholar-

339

340 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

like tastes, loyally attached to his College, and justly
popular with the junior members of it. He stood
manfully by Sir Eobert Peel when he was rejected
by the University in 1829 on his adhesion to Catholic
Emancipation, but in 1852 he was himself brought
forward against Mr. Gladstone as Conservative can-
didate for the same constituency. Mr. Gladstone
told me, that when he afterwards called upon him
with Sir Eobert Inglis, according to ancient custom,
as M.P. for the University, Dr. Marsham remarked
on parting — " Well, Sir Eobert, we know that we
can always trust you to vote on the right side,"
then adding, as he turned to Mr. Gladstone — " And
permit me to add, Mr. Gladstone, that you will never
go far wrong if you will only vote with Sir Robert
Inglis." I had never thought of succeeding him,
and had no reason to suppose that such would be the
wish of the Fellows generally, whose choice, I sup-
posed, might probably fall on some eminent person
outside our own body. I received an intimation,
however, that, while one or two of my colleagues
would naturally prefer a clergyman as Warden, the
general voice was in favour of inviting me, and this
invitation ultimately became unanimous.

Ten years earlier, however much I should have
been gratified by such a proof of confidence, I should
probably have felt unable to accept the nomination,
the duties of the Wardenship being practically incon-
sistent with a Parliamentary career, which had been
my supreme aim during the best years of my life.
But I had definitely abandoned this object after my

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 341

defeat in Monmouthsliire, and should have declined
the offer of any seat except that for the University
of Oxford, the reversion of which fell opportunely
to my friend, Sir William Anson, on the death of
Sir John Mowbray in 1 899. On reflection, therefore,
I felt that I ought to embrace the opportunity of
doing good presented by the position thus opened to
me, though in a wholly different sphere from that in
which I had desired to employ my best powers,
which, as I well knew, could never be called out by
the Headship of a College. I cannot say that 1
thought myself specially qualified for an office of
that kind, having no pretence to profound learning,
nor any keen interest in Academical matters. On
the other hand, I realised that a non-competitive
vocation would be, in some respects, more congenial
to my sensitive temperament, while I was conscious
of a deep and warm sympathy with my juniors.
Lord Granville used to say that he doubted whether
any one else was ever quite so young as he once was.
I wish I could adopt his saying, but assuredly I was
never the youngest of the young, or as light-hearted
as many of my companions. On the other hand,
since I have become an elderly man, I have never felt
the least barrier of sentiment between myself and
younger men, whom I envy too much to be hard
upon them, and whose failings I never can be extreme
to mark, except where they proceed from badness or
hardness of heart. I was also, and had ever been, a
hearty believer in the College system, which I regard
as the palladium of the older English Universities,

342 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and the vital source of their beneficent influence on
the nation. The result was that I was elected with-
out opposition on February 17, 1881, and entered
upon my duties two or three days later. In the
olden times, three names of eligible candidates were
submitted by the College to the Archbishop of Can-
terbury, as Visitor, from which he was expected to
choose the one placed first on the list, though in one or
two historical cases he insisted on nominating an out-
sider. The Warden-designate then went up to London
and received in person the confirmation of his election
at the Visitor's hands. On his return he was met by a
deputation of Fellows at the top of Shotover Hill, and
escorted on horseback into Oxford. On my elec-
tion, under our new Statutes, it was decided that it
would be more proper for the Visitor to be ofiicially
apprised of the fact by two of the Fellows, and to
notify his confirmation in writing ; but Archbishop
Tait used to declare that I was only half-appointed,
since I was not presented to him in person, and I am
not sure that he was wrong. At all events, on re-
ceipt of the Visitor's confirmation, the old usage was
observed at my installation. This usage required
that I should knock at the College gates, which
should thereupon be thrown open, that the letters
of confirmation should then be read, and that, after
replying briefly to a few words of welcome, I should
be conducted by the Fellows to the Warden's lodg-
ings. Many were the congratulations which reached
me from old friends and others, most of whom
assumed, with kindly ignorance of my feelings, that

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 343

Academical otium cum dignitate was the climax of
my lifelong ambition. A truer note was struck by
one of my oldest friends, Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff,
who advised me to remember that, while Cabinet
Ministers were not few in number, and members of
Parliament were as the sands of the sea-shore for
multitude, there were not many Wardens of Merton
in the world.

The Oxford to which I returned after twenty-five
years of non-residence was a very difierent place from
that which I had left in 1856. All the Colleges
except three had changed their Heads, some twice,
since that year, and all but one since I took my
degree in 1854. All the College Statutes had been
twice remodelled, and the new code framed by the
second Commission was coming into eflfective opera-
tion. The complete abolition of religious Tests,
commenced by the University Reform Act of 1854,
had already been effected, after a long struggle, by
the Act of 187 1 ; but, under these new Statutes,
clerical restrictions on Headships were all but swept
away, and clerical Fellowships were reduced to a
minimum. Instead of being held for life on con-
dition of celibacy. Fellowships were henceforth to be
held without any such condition, but to be termin-
able in seven years, provision being made for
re-election in the case of persons engaged in tuition
or other service for the College or the University.
For the great majority of College scholarships a
maximum value of £80 a year was established, and
nineteen was fixed as the maximum age for the

344 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

election of scholars. A very large proportion of
College revenues was diverted from collegiate pur-
poses, and appropriated to tlie maintenance of new
Professorships, Eeaderships, and University institu-
tions, such as the Bodleian Library. Meanwhile,
the monopoly of Colleges, already weakened by the
revival of private Halls, had been finally broken down
by the full recognition of non-collegiate students.
Keble College had been founded on a novel, and not
very constitutional, basis ; Magdalen Hall had been
re-endowed, and re-christened as Hertford College.
Meanwhile, a restless spirit of progress within the
University itself had subdivided the Natural Science
School into several branches, and the School of Law
and Modern History into two Schools representing
its two component elements ; a School of Theology
had been added, and a School of Oriental Languages
was in contemplation. The portentous question of
granting degrees to women {but without matriculat-
ing them) was beginning to loom in the distance.
With the gradual disappearance of clerical privileges,
the clerical spirit of the University had been largely
tempered, and though its religious character had not
been sensibly impaired by the admission of Non-
conformists, it had ceased to be a focus of theo-
logical controversy. There was, however, a great
preponderance of religious influence on the High
Church side, well represented by Canon Liddon and
Bishop King, while the sinister alliance of Ritualism
and Socialism had already made itself felt. Though
the energy of Oxford science by no means kept pace

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 345

with the increase of its endowments, it was steadily
gaining the respect of Europe ; the professoriate had
received and was still receiving an accession of
eminent names ; and the work of College tutors,
instead of being the temporary vocation of Fellows
waiting for livings, was gradually placing itself on the
footing of a regular profession. Nearly all the older
Colleges had extended their buildings, mostly by the
aid of private munificence ; Magdalen and Trinity
were about to do so ; and the aggregate number
of undergraduates, including non-collegiate students,
had been nearly doubled within some thirty years.

This internal growth had coincided with three
educational movements of national importance, one
originated in concert, and two others in friendly
rivalry, with the University of Cambridge. The
first of these was the scheme of local examinations
for pupils of middle-class schools, established by a
statute passed at Oxford in 1857, afterwards adopted
by Cambridge, and now exercising a regulative
influence on middle - class education throughout
England. The second, which began in 1873, was
the examination of public schools by a joint board
representing the two Universities. The third was a
movement, initiated at Cambridge, and deserving of
a better name than " University Extension," whereby
methodical instruction in various branches of know-
ledge has been brought within reach of students
residing in populous centres, at a moderate cost, by
University lecturers accustomed to address large and
mixed audiences. Through all these agencies, internal

346 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and external, Oxford had lost its old-world aspect,
and something of its traditional character, by the
year 1881, becoming much less exclusive and more
cosmopolitan. It had long ceased to be the peculiar
seminary of the Anglican clergy, and was fast ceasing
to be the peculiar training-school of the English
country gentry ; young men of various creeds, and
even of different colours, were to be seen mingling
in the inimitable freemasonry of undergraduate life ;
not only claret, but coffee and temperance beverages
were challenging the supremacy of port in common
rooms ; dons were less donnish ; and the general
tone of Oxford society more nearly resembled that of
the West End of London than it had done when I
quitted the University in 1856 — constantly revisit-
ing it, however, for the purpose of attending College
meetings and other gatherings.

One of the greatest contrasts between social life
in Oxford as it was in my early days and what I
found it in 188 1 — still more, between what it was
and what it now is — has been caused by a prodigious
increase in the number of resident ladies. Fifty
years ago, with the rarest exceptions, no Tutor was
or could be married ; Professors could marry, but
there were very few of them ; while the wives of
married Heads were mostly elderly people. The
consequence was, that even dinner-parties were scarce,
and evening-parties, still more balls, almost unknown
except in the Commemoration week. I do not re-
member to have dined out in a family-house above
three or four times during my undergraduate career ;

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 347

" ladies' society " was a luxury reserved for Vacations,
and female visitors were still described familiarly as
" lionesses." Of course all this has long since been
changed, and the semi- monastic appearance of the
University as it was fifty years ago has been entirely
obliterated. To borrow language which I have used
elsewhere — " a very large proportion of College
Tutors as well as of Professors are married, and
many have grown-up daughters, with the inevitable
result that musical reunions, evening-parties, garden-
parties, and even " Cinderella " balls, ending before
midnight, are now quite common in Term-time. It
has been said that when a tutor marries he is worth
less and expects more, being less accessible to pupils,
but more tempted, as the father of a family, to study
bread- winning at the expense of collegiate interests.
At all events, his wife cannot be severely blamed if
she regards the College mainly as a source of income,
and shows her interest in it by promoting amusement
rather than study. Probably the passmen have
gained by this importation of feminine influence, for,
if they must needs idle away their evenings, it is
better that they should do so in the refined company
of ladies ; but it is certain that uien who might
otherwise be reading hard are sometimes enervated
by distractions which they follow — not in play-hours,
but in hours which should be sacred to work. Nor
does the general society of Oxford consist wholly or
mainly of those actually engaged in teaching, with
their families. The increasing number of such
families, with limited incomes but refined tastes, has

348 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

attracted from all parts of tlie country the same
class of residents which has long frequented Bath,
Cheltenham, and Leamington ; indeed, it has been
discovered that plain living and high thinking can be
combined in Oxford more easily than in any other
provincial town. Some of these retired officers and
Indian civilians have taken an active and a useful
part, not only in local committees and charities, but
in certain branches of Academical work. Another
element which has greatly disturbed Academical re-
pose, both for good and for evil, is the constant
influx of visitors from London and elsewhere. For
some reason not easy to explain, Cambridge, though
equally accessible and equally hospitable, is less
frequented by the great London world, and seems to
be less susceptible of external influences than Oxford
as it is. But Oxford as it was in the old days of
coaching, and even in my own time when the rail-
way had been open for several years, was still an
Academical town, fifty or sixty miles from the
metropolis, whose Colleges sheltered not a few con-
firmed old bachelors doomed to celibacy on pain of
losing their Fellowships, who had no tutorial duties,
but who eschewed domestic life, and had perhaps
never entered a London club or drawing-room. For
the same reason it could not be overrun by sight-
seers, especially of the fair sex, absolutely indifi'erent
to the studies of the place, and treating it only as a
holiday resort.

It is needless to add that ladies' Halls were
not only unknown, but would have seemed a pre-

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 349

posterous innovation, as much out of place in a
University for men as a masculine Hall would be
within the precincts of HoUoway College. Somer-
ville College, as it now calls itself, and Lady Mar-
garet Hall, had been opened shortly before my return
to Oxford in 1881. The former was founded on a
non - sectarian but not a non - religious basis ; the
latter was from the first a Church institution. Both
have fulfilled their purpose, if their purpose was
mainly to provide a quasi-Academical training for
young ladies destined for the educational profession,
and incidentally for young ladies more likely to
develop their higher powers in quasi-Academical
society than amidst the surroundings of home life.
It reflects great credit on the discretion of the Lady
Principals who have presided over them, and on the
rules laid down for the conduct of students, that no
scandal has yet arisen from the proximity of these
Halls inhabited by young women to Colleges in-
habited by young men. Some of these rules, such
as those prohibiting attendance at College lectures
without a chaperone or at least a companion, have
been gradually and perhaps inevitably relaxed. It
is to be hoped that relaxations of this kind will not
be carried too far, lest the spell of immunity from
evil report should at last be broken. Hitherto the
lady students have been mostly reading for Honours ;
if there should ever be a large influx of pass- women
of the same type as passmen, and bent on having
" a good time " at Oxford, difiiculties of discipline will
be greatly aggravated.

2 so MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

There are many friends of female education to
whom it appears strange, and even unjust, that
women should be admitted to Academical lectures
and examinations, with the privilege of figuring in
the class-list, though not in the same classes with
men, and yet should be denied the privilege of
taking a B.A. degree. The slightest examination
will show the futility of this notion. The Univer-
sity was in no way responsible for the immigration
of female students into Oxford. They came thither
of their own accord, hoping to obtain Academical
instruction at a small expense to themselves, instead
of resorting to independent female Colleges, such as
that afterwards established under the will of Mr.
HoUoway. At first, they were taught separately
by lecturers specially engaged. They were then ad-
mitted, gradually and as an act of favour, to Univer-
sity and College lectures, not without injury to the
interests of male students, in order to facilitate their
getting the best teaching at the least cost. The
application for their admission to University ex-
aminations was long opposed, partly on the ground
that it would open the door to further claims, and
concessions were ultimately made, one after another,
on the positive and repeated assurance of their
advocates that no claim for admission to degrees was
contemplated. When a safe interval had elapsed,
the claim for admission to degrees was duly made,
and based on the very fact of their having been
admitted to examinations, which, it was now urged,
carried with it in justice, and must have been in-

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 351

tended to imply, the right to a formal recognition
of the student's attainments by the Academical title
of B.A. Of course, it was earnestly declared that,
if this were granted, the claim to an M.A. degree
would never be made, or at least that, if it were
granted, the recipients would be content with the
mere status of M.A., without being allowed a share
in the government of the University. For the
favourite argument in support of the claim to a B.A.
degree was that female students educated at Oxford
were placed at a disadvantage in competing for such
positions as that of Head-Mistress against candidates
decorated with the coveted title by other Universi-
ties. The sufficient reply to such an argument is,
that it assumes an incredible degree of ignorance
on the part of Governing Bodies and others dis-
pensing educational appointments. These bodies
have before them not only testimonials from the
Principals of ladies' Halls or Colleges, but evidence
of the University honours which each candidate may
have attained, and must be perfectly aware that a
bare pass-degree attested by the title of B.A. is a
very inferior qualification to a good class in one of
the Honour Schools. Moreover, no case of the hard-
ship alleged could be made good on inquiry.

A similar question was raised at Cambridge in
1 896, and a qualified motion to make women eligible
for B.A. degrees was thrown out by a decisive
majority of the Senate, swelled by a remarkable
muster of non-residents. The proposal never reached
this stage at Oxford, being rejected by an equally

352 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

decisive majority of the resident Masters of Arts
in Congregation during the same year, after an
animated though inadequate debate. Strange to
say, though almost every other reason on either
side was put forward and discussed, that which
appears to me the most conclusive, if not the
weightiest, reason of all was ignored throughout.
This is the constitutional objection to conferring
degrees upon persons who have never been members
of the University at all, and would thus become
graduates without having been undergraduates. The
University has no direct cognizance of Somerville
College or Lady Margaret Hall, any more than of
HoUoway College. None of these establishments
is licensed in any way by the University, their
Principals are appointed by Committees or Councils
unknown to the University, their students are under
no sort of University control. Proctorial or other-
wise, and can be sent in for examinations without
having satisfied any conditions of residence or stand-
ing. In a word, the University is in no sense
responsible for them, except so far as it empowers
the Delegates of Local Examinations to "use" the
ordinary degree examinations for their benefit, and
allows their names to appear in a separate class-
list. No such indulgence has been conceded to any
private College for young men entirely outside
University jurisdiction, but it is quite conceivable
that it might be conceded. In that case, can any
one doubt that a claim for degrees on behalf of
these nondescript and unmatriculated students, per-

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 353

haps resident in Oxford but strangers to all that
constitutes the common University life, would be
scouted and laughed out of Court? No — there is
something to be said for matriculating women, thus
converting what has been a man's University for
seven hundred years into a mixed University of the
American type ; there is even something to be said
for throwing open to women endowments designed
exclusively for men, as well as University and
College offices, including those of the Vice-Chan-
cellor. Proctors, and collegiate Heads. All this might
be very unjust, very foolish, and very mischievous,
but it would not be constitutionally absurd. What
is a sheer constitutional absurdity is to have young
ladies studying at Oxford in their present inde-
pendent and anomalous position, and then to grant
them degrees, not honoris causd, but as of right,
upon a mere examination test.

A notable change had come over the system of
Oxford lectures and examinations during the interval
between 1856 and 1881, nor has any reaction against
this change set in during the last nineteen years.
The broad general treatment of subjects which used
to be a distinctive feature of Oxford education had
given way in many directions to specialism, an off-
spring of the demand for " Endowment of Research,"
and specialism continues to hold the field. It is
curious that Goethe, in his Dichtung und Wahreit,
censures a like tendency among the younger German
Professors of his own day, attributing it to a some-
what different cause. He says that "when these

z

354 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

Professors teach only that they may learn, and more-
over, if they have talent, anticipate their age, they
acquire their own cultivation altogether at the cost
of their hearers, since these are not instructed in
what they really need, but in that which the Pro-
fessor finds it necessary to elaborate for himself."
Now, I willingly allow that, in my own time, there
was an anti-specialistic tendency sometimes carried
to extremes. It was then rather the fashion to exalt
intellectual grasp and insight above the mastery of
facts, as if mere power could be of much value with-
out knowledge — as if subtlety of analysis or brilliancy
of statement were the crown of intellectual great-
ness, and accuracy of information a secondary accom-
plishment. Nevertheless, I contend that under " the
old system " the supreme worth of comprehensive and
well-proportioned views was more justly appreciated,
and the all-important art of intellectual generalship
more thoroughly cultivated. When I came up to
Oxford in 1850, no one could obtain a first class in
the LiteroB Humaniores School without reaching a
high standard in Latin and Greek Scholarship, Philo-
sophy, and Ancient History, unless, indeed, he were
so exceptionally strong in one of these studies as to
compensate for some little weakness in another.
When Moderations were established in 1852 for the
special purpose of testing and rewarding Latin and
Greek scholarship, it was understood that a second-
rate or third-rate scholar, incapable of verse com-
position, and below mediocrity in prose composition,
might nevertheless get a first class in the Final

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 355

" Greats School," by very marked proficiency in
Philosophy and Ancient History. This may have
been a salutary alteration, on the whole, but as-
suredly first class honours in that school no longer
betoken so complete an intellectual training as they
once did.

But the principle has since been carried very
much further. Not only is the student encouraged
at every turn by Professors, tutors, and examiners,
to specialise his studies, but he is allowed — nay,
tempted — to concentrate himself on a few questions
in each examination paper, so as to produce on the
examiner's mind the impression of having devoted
himself to special " research." This seems to me a
grievous error, and one calculated to undermine the
best characteristic of Oxford culture. The principle
of specialism, or subdivision of labour, is wholly mis-
applied when it is applied to education. In the
mechanical arts, perfection of workmanship can only
be combined with cheapness if a multitude of work-
men are employed on separate parts of the same
article to be manufactured. In extending the fron-
tiers of any science or branch of literature, it is
equally necessary that numerous explorers should be
labouring in separate corners of the same field. But
the object and sphere of education are entirely difier-
ent, and it is a gross perversion of specialism to make
it the guiding principle of the student's efi"orts. He
should rather be urged to aim, under proper advice,
at a panoramic survey of a period or subject, to read
text-books which exhibit it in true proportion, to fill

356 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

in its leading details accurately but not too minutely,
to cultivate docility rather than critical acumen — in
short, to remain the student, and not to imitate the
scientific or literary pioneer. For, after all, the
special knowledge and exhaustive criticisms which
the modern first class man brings forth in the schools
and in Fellowship examinations are almost always
second-hand, and cannot be otherwise. He cannot
possibly have sounded for himself the depths of the
latest problems in Philosophy, History, Philology, or
Archaeology; but he often displays a marvellous skill
in reproducing the notes taken down from eminent
lecturers, and already embodied in essays revised by
tutors, which he contrives to invest with a genuine
air of originality. The aff"ectation of philosophical
omniscience was a foible of the period just before the
reign of specialism, which is, so far, a wholesome pro-
test against it, but the self-confidence of sciolism is
common to both. This attitude of mind, combined
with constant practice in essay-writing, has a marked
eflfect in developing certain faculties, and the literary
ability shown by the best candidates for Oxford
Fellowships would compare favourably with that
required for ordinary journalism, or for many suc-
cessful tours de force in professional and political
careers. But it may be doubted whether minds and
characters were not more soundly disciplined, before
either " generalism " (if I may so call it) or specialism
was invented — whether Peel or Gladstone, for in-
stance, with no pretence of " research " and a much
smaller capital of knowledge, did not go forth from

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 357

the Oxford Schools better equipped for the highest
work of life than their fluent and learned successors.
Another change which naturally followed on the
reforms of 1850-6 was the inroad made upon the
College system by the introduction of intercollegiate
lecturing, and the virtual transfer of instruction in
Natural Science to the University Museum. When
I came into residence, it was easy enough for each
College to provide lectures and tuition in all the
subjects then recognised — Classics (including Ancient
Philosophy and History), Mathematics, and Logic.
When a school of Law and Modern History was
founded in 1853, few Colleges had a tutor competent
to lecture in either, and still fewer could undertake
to find lecturers in Natural Science. The consequence
was that almost all teaching in Natural Science was
concentrated, from the first, in the Museum, just
opened very opportunely, with an incomplete appar-
atus of laboratories and collections, since expanded
into a scientific palace. Here the student finds
advantages which he could not get in College, but
he is no longer under the eye of Tutors well ac-
quainted with his character, watching his going out
and coming in, and charged with a general responsi-
bility for his conduct. However, some Colleges meet
this difficulty, to some extent, by having a Natural
Science Tutor of their own, and two or three also
maintain College laboratories. Meanwhile, the exi-
gencies of new subjects, the demand for collegiate
lectures of a more Professorial kind, and the grow-
ing tendency to specialisation, led to voluntary com-

358 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

binations of Colleges for the purpose of lecturing
in Honour subjects. These combinations, facilitating
a division of labour among tutors, have certainly-
improved the quality of lectures, thereby reducing
both the attendance at Professorial classes and the
necessity for private tuition. While the great ex-
tension of the Professoriate had been advocated in
the interest of research rather than of education, and
while its leading spokesmen have always rather dis-
paraged their educational duties, protesting against
the very moderate obligations laid upon them by the
University Commissioners, they did not at all relish
the process of lecturing to empty benches. Hence
their proposal that .attendance on their lectures
should be compulsory upon students taking up their
subjects, and the doggerel Oxford version of the
jingo-song which became current twenty years ago :

" We don't want to lecture, but, by jingo, if we do,
We'll have a statutable class to spout our lectures to."

It is a great pity that the Commission of 1877,
which meddled and muddled so much, did not
attempt to frame any organic connection between
the separate orders of Professors, University Readers
(then first established), and College Tutors — for
which the system of intercollegiate lectures afforded
a ready-made basis. Had this been done — had all
the higher teaching in the University been co-
ordinated, a great waste of power might have been
avoided, and the abler College Tutors would have
been transformed, long ago, in effect if not in name.

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 359

into University sub- Professors, without forfeiting
their former position. As for pass-lectures, they
ought hardly to be needed, and could easily be
given by a body of coaches in the pay of the
Colleges.

Whether or not the University, as reformed by
two Commissions, produces more eminent men than
it did in its unregenerate state, may perhaps be
doubted, especially by elderly men who, however
resolved not to lapse into the laudator temporis
acti, can hardly be expected to regard their juniors
as apostles or prophets. But there can be no doubt
that its intellectual life has been greatly enriched
by the extension of its curriculum, and perhaps
even by the growth of specialism. A modern
Erasmus or Casaubon would now find himself far
more at home in Oxford than he would fifty years
ago, and an accomplished man of the world would
be equally in his element, if properly introduced.
Though Oxford would not presume, and does not
aspire, to keep pace with her German rivals in the
multiplication of monographs interesting only to
savants, a collection of the independent works, and
still more of valuable articles in literary and scientific
periodicals (not to speak of journals), written by
Oxford Professors and Tutors in the course of a
single year, would efiectually silence those who
afiect to deplore its intellectual sterility. Nor is
there any perceptible "note of provincialism" in
Oxford society. Quite apart from external influ-
ences, mainly derived from London, a variety of

36o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

interests and occupations now exists among senior
members of the University which inevitably gathers
them into many diverse circles. Side by side with
the older Academical studies, to which so many
have lately been added, music, art, archaeology, and
helles lettres in the widest sense of the term, are
earnestly cultivated by their respective votaries,
while numerous social clubs, of various hues, effectu-
ally correct any collegiate spirit of exclusiveness.
Many of the younger Dons, too, are zealous
travellers, especially in the Easter Vacations, when
Oxford parties are generally to be met wandering,
not only over most countries of Europe, but over
North Africa and the Levant. Others are keen
politicians, eagerly taking part in election contests
far away from Oxford or their own homes. Not that
political animosity, in ordinary times, runs high in
Oxford. Every one reads the newspapers, and forms,
or thinks he forms, his own opinion, but the great
struggles in Parliament usually excite much less
strenuous partisanship than purely Academical ques-
tions.

The Home Rule contest formed an exception,
and here the storm in the Oxford tea-cup raged as
furiously as in the open sea. I was often amused
to observe that grave and learned men, who,
lecturing upon their own ground in Philosophy or
History, would have been scrupulous and modest
in their statements, were perfectly " cock-sure " on
a momentous issue of national policy to which they
had never given an hour's serious thought, and,

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 361

without possessing a child's knowledge of Ireland,
would dogmatise confidently on its right and capa-
city to govern itself. Those who did know some-
thing about Ireland were, almost to a man. Liberal
Unionists or Conservatives. Not even this supreme
test, which severed friendships and divided families
in the political world, seriously disturbed the even
tenor of Oxford society, and I do not remember
that I ever found it necessary to take account of
it in the assortment of guests for dinner-parties.
Still less has the peace of Oxford society been
marred by the odium theologicum within the present
generation. There was a very slight revival of it
some years ago, when Mr. Horton, a Nonconformist,
was nominated to examine in the " Eudiments of
Faith and Religion," and his name was rejected by
the University Convocation ; but it very soon died
out. The tacit concordat now prevailing between
the two great religious parties at Oxford may be
dated from the year 1865, when the undignified
controversy over the endowment of the Greek
Professorship was closed by a compromise, and the
defeat of Mr. Gladstone established the ascendency
of Conservatism in the constituency. Thenceforward,
a philosophical toleration of opinion has well-nigh
superseded both the political enmities of the past,
and the intolerant dogmatism, not confined to one
party in the Church, which had its origin in the
Neo-Catholic Revival.

Academical partisanship, of course, remains, and
is not altogether an unhealthy symptom. Perhaps

362 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the most important trial of strength within the last
twenty years was that, already mentioned, on the
proposal for admitting women to degrees, but this
was in the limited and decorous assembly of "Con-
gregation." A far more tumultuous contest was
that on the proposal for enlarging the rooms appro-
priated to Physiology, since this came before " Con-
vocation," in which all Masters of Art, resident or
non-resident, several thousands in number, were
entitled to vote. The proposal was treated by its
opponents as a formal expression of confidence in
Dr. Burdon Sanderson, now Sir John Burdon
Sanderson, then Professor of Physiology, who had
written in support of Vivisection (duly regulated),
and was represented as intending to conduct bar-
barous experiments in the University Museum. The
combat was, therefore, between the Anti-Vivi-
sectionists and those who trusted the discretion
and humanity of Dr. Burdon Sanderson. A vigor-
ous canvass brought up some hundreds of non-
residents ; the Sheldonian Theatre was crowded
and seething with excitement ; telling speeches
were delivered on both sides, and the proposal was
ultimately adopted by a considerable majority. A
comical episode in the proceedings was the half-
delivered speech of a gentleman who, rising late,
failed to get a hearing, but was understood to be
arguing in favour of Vivisection on the ground that
it had been sanctioned by our Lord Himself when
He caused the herd of swine to run down a steep
place into the sea, it being a well-known fact that

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 363

pigs cut their own throats in swimming, and would
thus vivisect themselves in the midst of the waves.
Other warm debates and close divisions have taken
place on the claims of new studies, like English
and Modern Languages, to "Schools" of their own,
on projects supposed to involve the relegation of
Greek to a secondary place in classical examinations,
on various schemes for University Extension and
granting certificates in Peedagogy so called, and on
other schemes for reducing the minimum of resi-
dence required for a degree ; but none of these
contests, nor the periodical elections to the Uni-
versity Council, have been fierce enough to call for
a regular Academical field-day, like those of earlier
times. Perhaps the nearest approach to it was on
the presentation of Air. Cecil Rhodes for a D.C.L.
degree at the Encaenia in June 1899. It has been
erroneously supposed that this honour had been
awarded to him by the University itself several
years before, when he was unable to attend, and
that it only remained for him to appear in person
and assume it. The fact is that it had simply been
ofi"ered to him, in a preliminary way, by the Uni-
versity Council, which has no power to confer
degrees, and could only intimate to him its intention
of submitting his name to a vote of the University
Convocation. The proposal, then, came before the
University itself for the first time at the Encsenia
of 1899, and there would have been no inconsistency
whatever in rejecting it, especially as the reasons
for doing so had arisen since the original offer, and

364 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the personal composition of the Council had entirely
changed in the meantime. But it does not follow
that it would have been either right or politic to
reject it, and the threatened exercise of the Proctorial
veto would have been wholly indefensible. As it
was, an extremely moderate protest was recorded
against it, admitting that, under the circumstances,
the University Council for the year could not wisely
have repudiated the act of their predecessors, what-
ever might be thought of the discretion shown by
those who invited Mr. Rhodes to claim his promised
degree at so inopportune a time. It is needless to
say that his friends were rallied and increased in
number by the ill-advised threat of a Proctorial
veto, and that he received a far more enthusiastic
welcome than if his title had never been chal-
lenged.

When I came to Oxford for the second time as
a freshman, though as Warden of Merton, one of
my kind and candid friends whispered to me that
perhaps it would not be wise to speak too often in
the University Congregation or Convocation, as if
my personal ambition were likely to lure me in that
direction. However, I followed his advice by only
speaking twice in the former assembly, and never
in the latter, the fact being that I very soon formed
the opinion that a very large proportion of time
spent in Academical legislation was worse than
wasted. So vast a business as that of University
administration, embracing, as it does, the manage-
ment of the Clarendon Press, of large estates, of

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 365

many institutions, and of a great educational
machinery, demands of necessity an ample amount
of labour and energy. It was not ill conducted by
the old Hebdomadal Board, when it was far less
comprehensive than it now is, and it is not ill
conducted now by the many Committees or
" Delegacies " among whom the work is distributed.
Nor should it be forgotten that all this work is
carried on by unpaid volunteers, in their spare
hours, with the assistance of a very few salaried
officials. But the same praise cannot be bestowed
on the conduct of legislative business within the
University. This is partly the fault of the con-
stitution framed by the first University Commission,
and partly of the hypercritical and unpractical spirit
which is the besetting weakness of an Academical
Society. It might be supposed that, as the initiative
of all measures rests with the University Council,
and as this body consists of picked and experienced
men, no proposal would come before the assembly of
resident Masters of Arts known as " Congregation,"
without having been thoroughly matured, and
without being supported by a printed statement of
reasons. Instead of this, any one of the crude ideas
which multiply like microbes in the Academical
atmosphere has a good chance of being taken up,
sooner or later, by the University Council, if only
to invite a discussion upon it in Congregation, which
feels no responsibility for the legislative form that
may be given to it. The statute or decree em-
bodying it has probably been loosely drawn in its

366 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

original shape, it is then pulled to pieces and over-
loaded with amendments, and it is ultimately passed
without the least foresight of the consequential
amendments which it may involve. The favourite
diversion of the younger tutors for the last forty
years and more has been tinkering examination
statutes. During this period hardly one Term has
elapsed without some fresh amendment of them,
and since they have often been tinkered more than
once in the same Term, it would be safe to estimate
that at least 1 50 alterations have been made in them
since the great reforms of 1850-7. Assuredly no
student and no tutor could stand an examination
in the examination statutes themselves, and I have
sometimes heard the legislative imbecility of the
University compared with the action of a child
* pulling up plants to see whether they are growing.
I believe that at Cambridge this evil is mitigated
by means of informal conferences, which might be
worthy of imitation. But it is vain to expect
business-like and far-sighted legislation from a large
body of clever men, each thinking himself quite as
wise as any one else, and under no rules of party
discipline, especially as they belong to more than
twenty diflferent Colleges, with different traditions
and sometimes divergent interests.

This last cause has hitherto proved fatal to any
working agreement among Colleges for combined
scholarship examinations. Thirty or forty years ago,
each College had a stated time of year for its election
to scholarships, and examined by itself Parents and

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 367

Masters were tlien guided by various motives in mak-
ing their choice, the most promising boys at public
schools being mostly reserved for competitions at
Balliol and one or two other leading Colleges, and
few candidates being sent up more than once. Much
was to be said for this system, and the character
of each College was shown in its scholarship
elections. It was thought, however, that examining
power might be economised by holding common
examinations for several Colleges, and, since this
was done, the practice has grown up of entering
boys for group after group, in the hope of their
ultimately getting a scholarship, or at least an
exhibition, somewhere. The Head-masters of public
schools have again and again complained of the evils
and hardships entailed by this practice — for which,
however, they are largely responsible — and have
earnestly recommended that Colleges should com-
bine for scholarship examinations in two or three
large groups during the first half of the year, leaving
the Michaelmas Term a close-time, for reasons of
school policy. Attempt after attempt has been
made to establish co-operation among Colleges on
these principles, but they have all been defeated
by collegiate jealousies and self-interest, aggravated?
by the inherent incapacity of Academical politicians!
to construct anything that will last. It is fair to
say, however, that Head-masters haves teadily
declined to support their vehement appeals to
Colleges in the aggregate, by putting any real
pressure on those individual Colleges which are the

368 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

worst offenders, and least disposed to make any
concessions for the common good.

After watching the course of University affairs,
and the method of conducting them, for some little
time, I clearly realised that no one, and certainly
not myself, could hope to gain such an influence
as would enable him to control them effectively,
or to bring order out of the chaos which satisfied
a majority of residents, and that infinite time might
be wasted in the vain endeavour. I therefore
abandoned the idea of rendering good service in
the University Council or assemblies, and confined
myself to Committees entrusted with practical
duties under fairly definite conditions. For like
reasons, I allowed it to be known that I was un-
willing to accept the office of Vice-Chancellor, which
would naturally have devolved upon me in 1898.
This office is really an annual one, the Vice-Chancellor
being the deputy of the Chancellor, and nominated
by him in the autumn of each year. In old times,
it was often held by others besides Heads of Colleges,
but it has long been regarded as tenable by Heads
only, and is practically offered by the Chancellor
to each of these in rotation, according to the order
of their respective elections. At Oxford, it has been
the custom for the Vice-Chancellor to be thrice re-
appointed, and to remain in office four years,
though at Cambridge it is never held for more
than two years. The Provost of Worcester, who
stood next before me, having intimated his intention
of passing his turn, I had seriously to consider

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 369

whether I ought to accept it. Twelve or fifteen
years earlier I might have done so, resolving to
become, so far as in me lay, the Prime Minister
of the University, and relying on the loyal support
of colleagues. But I should almost certainly have
failed, and, when I had to face the question at the
age of sixty-seven, I saw that dignity with drudgery
but without power was not worth grasping, and that
any higher aspirations must end in vanity and
vexation of spirit. On my declining the honour,
the Warden of Wadham followed my example,
and the office was ably filled by Sir William Anson,
the Warden of All Souls, until his election in 1899
as burgess for the University. It was then declined
by the Master of University College, and accepted
by Dr. Fowler, the President of Corpus Christi, who
thus succeeded to it nineteen years and a half
sooner than he could have taken it if all his
seniors (by election) had become Vice-Chancellors,
and served out their full term of four years.

The position of a Head in an Oxford College has
varied considerably at difierent periods of University
history, and still difiers considerably in difiierent Col-
leges. During the vicissitudes of Church and State in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Univer-
sities were treated as instruments of government,
and each successive body of Commissioners, Protes-
tant or Catholic, Royalist or Roundhead, proceeded
at once to expel Heads of the opposite party and
replace them with Heads of their own party, as the
surest means of bringing the University into subjec-

2 A

370 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

tion. Yet the annals of Merton College supply many
proofs that its Wardens had but limited powers, and
that recalcitrant Fellows could only be coerced by
the Visitor. At all events, in recent times, and
especially under the codes of College statutes framed
by the last two Commissions, the Head of an Oxford
College has become little more than primus inter
pares, with powers infinitely less than are vested in
the Head-master of a public school. During the
later part of my predecessor's reign, when the
Wardenship was almost held in commission, these
constitutional powers were still further reduced at
Merton by College bye-laws, and I soon found that
I must rely upon indirect influence for any real good
that I could hope to achieve. Such a diminution of
responsibility is perhaps more conducive to a Head's
peace of mind than a nearer approach to personal
government, but I am not equally sure that it is for
the interest of the College. At all events, Colleges
are governed, for the most part, by College meetings,
that is, by all the Fellows who have kept one pro-
bationary year. Now, if we may trust the well-
known saying of the late Master of Trinity, all
Fellows are fallible, even the very youngest of them ;
and thbugh government by College meeting is a safe-
guard against some old-fashioned abuses, it is not an
ideal form of government. Happily, in most Colleges,
the Fellows are sensible enough to leave ordinary
cases of discipline in the hands of the Head and
Tutors, and ordinary eases of estate management in
the hands of the Bursar, perhaps aided by a Finance

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 371

Committee, reserving the more important matters
for the decision of the whole Governing Body.

Under such a constitution, it may well be asked,
and reformers of the last generation were profane
enough to ask persistently, What is the use of Heads,
and why should not all their work be delegated, for
instance, to Senior Tutors? This is not an easy
question to answer, and I, for one, should despair
of answering it successfully, if Heads treated their
moral duties as co-extensive with their legal duties.
Not very long ago, some of them at Oxford actually
did so, and it was a received opinion at Cambridge
that, so far as concerned his College, a Head might
lead the life of an Epicurean God, presiding at
College meetings, no doubt, but leaving all the
burden of disciplinary superintendence to fall on
the "Tutor" or (as at Trinity) the "Tutors." It is
right, however, to remember that at both the Univer-
sities, while indolent Heads might be mere ornamental
figure-heads of their Colleges, and almost wholly
ignorant of their " men," they had to conduct the
whole business of the University itself, since distri-
buted among representative Councils and Committees.
At present, no Oxford Head would be respected who
did not take an active part in all College business,
financial, disciplinary, or general ; and I may confi-
dently say that no Head, old or young, is now to be
found in Oxford who regards his post as a sinecure,
or ignores its moral responsibilities. From an educa-
tional point of view, I never could approve of the
suggestion that Heads, unless abolished, should be

372 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

compelled to lecture — perhaps at the age of ninety —
but, as a matter of fact, some are actively engaged
in tutorial work, others in bursarial work, and all in
daily co-operation with their younger colleagues. If
a Head is at all worthy of his position, he should
exercise a liberal hospitality, represent his College
honourably in the University and the outer world,
promote harmony among the Fellows, enter into
kindly relations with the undergraduates, and show
himself the friend, if he cannot make himself the
adviser, of every one in the College, not excluding
the servants. If I may speak of myself, I have been
in the habit of going to Chapel regularly, dining in
Hall on guest nights, inviting all the Fellows and
undergraduates to my own house every Term, and
attending all College Committees, disciplinary, finan-
cial, or otherwise ; and I know that some of my
brother - Heads take more upon themselves, being
allowed, and almost required, by the custom of their
Colleges to do so. A considerable demand is made
upon the time of all Heads by interviews at all hours,
not only with present members of the College, young
and old, but with past members of the College visit-
ing Oxford, to whom the Head is the permanent
centre of the society. A still larger amount of time
must be occupied in conducting official correspondence
with parents desiring admission for their sons, in
replying to miscellaneous letters on College afiairs,
often involving a reference to College archives, and
in writing testimonials for young members of the
College seeking appointments. Many of the appoint-

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 373

ments sought are tutorships, and I have sometiraes ■
wondered that men who have scraped through pass-
examinations with difficulty, showing little capacity
for learning, should boldly profess, and in some cases
should actually exhibit, a capacity for teaching. All
Heads, too, should take a share in University admini-
stration, and with some this involves many hours'
work in the week, to which others add a share in
City administration, or in the management of local
institutions. All this, it may be said, could be done
by a Senior Tutor with an increased salary ; and, if
the Universities should ever be reformed again under
the auspices of Social Democracy, Headships of Col-
leges will probably be among the first offices to be
swept away, on grounds of strict economy. But it
will not prove so easy to find Senior Tutors capable
of discharging efficiently all the duties of Heads in
addition to their own ; and, though a few hundreds
a year might be saved by the abolition of a Headship,
it is very doubtful whether the College system itself
would long survive the removal of its keystone.

Holding these views, I always treated my Col-
lege duties as a first charge upon my time, and never
allowed any other engagement, however attractive,
to interfere with them. From the first, I was
anxious to make friends with the younger members
of my own College, and found no difficulty whatever
in doing so, without the least prejudice to our re-
spective positions. Here the Head of a College has
some little advantage over a Tutor. Among young
University men there is a tendency to regard any one

374 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

wlio took his degree ten years ago as the oldest of
old fogeys ; the more so, if he is a Don of their own
College, armed with disciplinary authority. But,
as I used to say, if you only wait long enough, you
cease to be a fogey at all, the distance between your
age and theirs being no longer measurable by under-
graduate standards, and you can mix with them
freely on terms of social equality ; the more so, if
you are known to have lived in the great world, and
are not, like a Tutor, under the daily obligation of
correcting their faults. Thus, I have occasionally
taken part in meetings of undergraduate societies in
College, and presided at bump-suppers, when our
boat had won special distinction on the river. My
experience of my juniors at Merton, and not only at
Merton, has led me to form a favourable estimate of
the rising generation. This estimate, which I see no
reason to modify, was expressed in an article of mine
which appeared in the Nineteenth Century for August
1898, and from which I will venture to borrow a
passage descriptive of young Oxford : —

" There is, of course, equal variety in the habits and
characters of undergraduates ; but here the contrast be-
tween the present and the past is yet more striking, while
the distinctive influence of Oxford life is more conspicuous.
Young men will always be young men, and far more
interesting to men no longer young than it is possible or
desirable for them to understand. But the young men
who now throng the streets and quadrangles of Oxford are
very unlike their fathers and grandfathers ia appearance,
in manners, and in sentiment. The utmost possible free-
dom of custom is now openly tolerated. ' Men ' are

OXFORD AT END OF THE CENTURY 375

expected to wear gowns in chapel, in hall, and at lectures,
but mostly walk about their own colleges bareheaded;
some of them do not even possess a cap, but rely on
borrowing one from a friend to call upon a proctor or
attend an out-college lecture. Still, it is a rule that caps
and gowns must be worn in the streets after dark on pain
of a fine, but the rule which prescribes the same uniform
during the forenoon has long been in abeyance. Young
fellows in complete deshabille, and with their knees bare,
may now be seen flocking towards the river even in the
forenoon, and in the afternoon Oxford is alive with oars-
men, football players, cricketers, or athletes of the running
ground, mingling freely with ladies, in an undress which
assuredly would have shocked the sense of propriety in
former generations. A similar laxity prevails in the per-
mission of smoking in college quadrangles, and of wearing
shooting-coats at hall dinners, as well as in the general
freedom and ease which characterises the manners of the
modern undergraduate. It would be a mistake, however,
to suppose that such freedom and ease is inconsistent
with genuine courtesy and respect for others. On the
contrary, ladies of all ages may and do walk about the
streets and suburbs of Oxford ' unprotected,' without
having reason to fear the slightest rudeness ; and senior
members of the University, with ordinary tact, find no
difficulty in maintaining pleasant and natural relations
with their juniors, without the least effort or constraint on
either side.

" This gentleness and frankness in the rising generation
of Oxford men, especially shown in their relation with each
other, is partly, no doubt, the result of more sensible and
kindly training at home and at school ; but it is also, and
in a great degree, the result of University life, as may be
proved by the very appreciable difference between the
freshman and the man in his third or fourth year. The
improvement is all the more notable because the Uni-
versity is much less aristocratic than it was in the early
part of the century, and the new elements which have

37^ MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

doubled the number of its undergraduates are entirely
drawn from the middle or ' lower-middle ' classes. HappUy,
it betokens no lack of healthy boyishness, pluck, or high
spirits. The Oxford youth of the present day are as young
in character as undergraduates ever were, if they are not
still younger, and quite as fond of fun. The popularity of
football, which used to be neglected as too rough and
boyish a game for manhood, is a good illustration of this
youthfulness, especially as it is among the cheapest of
games, and can be played by the poorest man as well as
by the richest. The same quality sometimes breaks out
in juvenile escapades more worthy of schoolboys, which
occupy a very undue place in the popular conception of
Oxford. Indeed, there is an amusing contrast between the
follies into which even quiet and thoughtful young men
are occasionally betrayed by their gregarious instincts and
the habitual good sense and good feeling shown by the
same men acting individually. Upon the whole, it may be
said with confidence that Oxford undergraduates, as a class,
are more virtuous, better conducted, and better informed
than their predecessors in the reigns of George III. and
George IV., though it must be added in justice that they
get their virtue and their knowledge on easy terms. Not
having been persecuted at school for obeying the elemen-
tary precepts of Christianity, or left to puzzle out then-
lessons by the aid of miserable dictionaries, grammars,
and text-books (perhaps in Latin), they attain a higher
average level of morality, of information, and of culture.
But it may be doubted whether that strength of character
and independence of intellect which is developed by hard-
ship and stern discipline is not less common than in the
olden days."

CHAPTER XVII

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK
1881-1899

Literary work at Merton— Articles and addresses on Socialism — Ser-
vice on the City Council of Oxford — Experience of magistrates'
work — The Governing Body of Eton College.

My life at Merton was an easy one, conapared with
that which I had led in London as a journalist, and
my ofl&cial duties in the College and the University
left me a good deal of leisure for literary work, as
well as for occasional public service. During the
years 188 1-2, I contributed to periodicals not only
three articles already mentioned on Irish agrarian
questions,^ but two others on " The Claim of Tenant-
right for British Farmers," and "The State and
Prospects of British Agriculture in 1882." In the
former of these I sought to show that indefeasible
Tenant right, like that conceded to Irish farmers,
could not possibly be conceded with any semblance
of justice to English farmers, and that " an equally
plausible claim might be advanced on behalf of con-
sumers to restrict the price of farm produce, or on be-

1 " The Last Chapter of Irish History," " The Land Systems of England
and of Ireland," and " The Irish Land Act of 1881 : its origin and its
consequences."

378 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

half of labourers to fix a minimum rate of farm-wages."
At the same time, I suggested a gentler method
of securing the legitimate ends desired, by means of
"Compulsory enactments, to be operative only where
the parties should have failed to embody their agree-
ment in a lease of a certain duration." The second
article concluded with the following passage : " The
hierarchy of landlord, tenant farmer, and labourer
will continue long, and perhaps for ever, to be dis-
tinctive of our rural economy. But it is probable
that, in the agrarian constitution of the future,
peasant-proprietorship and farmer-proprietorship, co-
operative farming and cottage-farming, will prevail
over a far larger area than at present. The English
land -system, as we see it, is not so much a spon-
taneous growth as an artificial creation, and it has
been moulded not so much by skilful farmers study-
ing the interests of agriculture, as by skilful lawyers
and land agents studying interests of an entirely
diff"erent nature. When English land-owners, as a
body, cease to be almost sleeping partners, and bring
to bear on the business of cultivation the same in-
telligence and energy which are the life of British
manufactures, there will be less need for appointing
fresh Agricultural Commissions, and if they should
be appointed, their Reports will probably breathe a
far less desponding spirit." In November 1883, and
in April 1884, two articles by me appeared in the
Nineteenth Century, the one on "The Progress of
Democracy in England," the other on "Democracy
and Socialism." In February 1886, I delivered an

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 379

Address (afterwards published), at the Birmingham
and Midland Institute, on "The Socialistic Ten-
dencies of Modern Democracy," and I have since
dealt with the same question in other Addresses on
the "Fallacies of Modern Socialism," at Sutton
Coldfield, and elsewhere. It is much too large a
question to be discussed in a volume of " Remini-
scences," but I may say, in a word, that I regard
Socialism as the most pernicious, while it is the most
demonstrably false, delusion of our age. What makes
it the more dangerous in this country is, that it has
been taken up, under the plausible alias of " Chris-
tian Socialism," by a section of the clergy, most of
whom are quite ignorant of political economy, and
little know the nature of the evil spirit which they
are evoking. Christian Socialism, as preached by
Maurice and Kingsley was a very different thing,
however unwise they may have been in adopting
such an appellation. Its creed was simply that of
Christian philanthropy ; its system was simply that
of co-operation in its widest sense. But, as it did
not rob Peter to pay Paul, it would not have satisfied
the Social Democrats of our time, or the young
"priests" who are duped by them. I believe the
explanation of this unholy alliance between young
priests and Social Democrats to be very simple.
The young Socialist priest is, above all, desirous, and
that with the best of motives, to gain influence among
the people. To do this, he feels that he must con-
ciliate and please them somehow, but he cannot in
conscience help making heavy demands on their faith

38o MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and conduct. He dares not seek to win popularity
by making light of tke Christian religion or the
moral law, but he scruples not to win it at the ex-
pense of political and economical truth, adopting the
narrowest prejudices of trades-unionism with very
slight modifications, and sanctioning, if he does not
foment, those class-enmities which it is part of his
sacred mission to assuage.

I had always felt strongly drawn towards his-
torical studies, and had meditated writing a serious
work on more than one historical subject, including
" The Wars of the Eoses." If I abandoned such
projects, it was largely due to reasons which I have
some hesitation in avowing. One reason was that,
so far as I have observed, serious works depend for
their success, in these days, far less upon their in-
trinsic merits than on skill in advertising and pro-
curing favourable reviews. Another reason was
that, however ably an historical writer may have
delineated his subject, and however brilliant his style,
he is liable to be disparaged by the critics, and
discredited with the public, unless by grubbing in
archives never ransacked before, and perhaps barren
of interest, he has satisfied the modern craze for " re-
search." Now and then, a book like Green's "History
of the English People," deserves, and obtains, a wide
circulation by virtue of its real value, but such ex-
ceptions are rare, and I fear that others capable of
producing solid contributions to historical literature
have been deterred by the same motives which
deterred me. However, I bestowed some labour on

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 381

the history of my own College, and of the University.
In 1885, a volume by me entitled, "Memorials of
Merton College," was published by the Oxford His-
torical Society, containing the substance of lectures
on Merton history, with short biographical notices of
Wardens and Fellows, up to the early part of the
last century.^ In 1886, another volume by me, con-
taining a compendious summary of University history
within a compass of some 220 pages, appeared in a
series called " Epochs of Church History," edited by
Bishop Creighton. Some of my critics affected sur-
prise at not finding in this summary, rigorously
limited in length, subordinate details which might
fairly be expected in a classical History of the Univer-
sity, extending over several large volumes ; for my
own part, I shall be satisfied if my readers find in it
an accurate account of the leading events, arranged
in just proportion, and expressed in good English.
These volumes were followed by an article on " The
Evangelical Eevival of the Eighteenth Century,"
which in its origin formed an episode in University
history, but could not be given an adequate place in
my little synopsis, and by an article on " Oxford in
the Middle Ages," being a review of Mr. Maxwell
Lyte's excellent " History of the University," from
the earliest times to the year 1530— a work which
■has never been fully appreciated, and which remains
to be completed. In 1890 I was invited to deliver

1 A more complete History of Merton College, partly founded on
materials inaccessible to me, has since been published by my colleague,
Mr. B. W. Henderson.

382 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

a course of three lectures at the Eoyal Institution
on "The place of Oxford University in English
History." These lectures covered much the same
ground as Mr. Gladstone's more famous Romanes
Lecture delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre at
Oxford a year or two afterwards, except that Mr.
Gladstone availed himself freely of Mr. H. Rashdall's
later researches into the origin of European Univer-
sities. My own lectures have never been published,
but were reprinted in my " Literary Fragments,"
privately issued in 1 89 1 .

In the year 1889, the municipal constitution of
Oxford, which had been highly anomalous, was
entirely remodelled. The old Local Board, on which
the University had been represented, was merged
in the new City Council, in which three Aldermen
and seven ordinary Councillors, being one-sixth of
the whole body, were allotted to the University. I
was elected one of the University Aldermen, and sat
for three years on the Council. During this period,
I was favourably impressed by the public spirit and
capacity for business generally shown by my associates
from the City ; indeed, I could have wished that some
of the latter quality could have been transfused into
certain Academical conclaves. Only two burning
questions emerged from the ordinary topics of dis-
cussion, while I was on the Council, and on both
the old feud between the City and the University
flickered up into life. One was the proposed erection
of a statue to Cardinal Newman on a conspicuous
site in Broad Street, which the Duke of Norfolk and

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 383

other Catholics had oflFered to provide at their own
expense, and which had been provisionally accepted
by some influential citizens. Considering that it
was intended to place it within twenty or thirty
yards of the stone marking the spot on which Ridley,
Latimer, and Cranmer were burned to death, I could
not but agree with Sir M. E. Grant DuflF's remark
that, except Smithfield, no more inappropriate site
could have been selected in all England for a
memorial to Newman. But, apart from this objec-
tion, a large majority of Academical residents felt
strongly that Newman was not the one alumnus of the
University who should be singled out as the first to
receive this unique honour, while his connection with
the City was of the very slightest. The knowledge
of this disapproval on the part of the University,
was enough to inflame the zeal of citizens into a
white heat of hero-worship. Men who had been
adverse to public monuments in Oxford, who had
probably never read a line of Newman's writings
except the hymn " Lead, kindly Light," and whose
Nonconformist bias would naturally have been alto-
gether on the other side, became enthusiastic advo-
cates of the statue, and roundly denounced the
bigotry of their University colleagues. They carried
their point, but the Duke of Norfolk wisely declined
to foment an angry controversy at Oxford over the
memory of Newman, and withdrew the ofi'er of his
statue.

The other question which revived the ancient
and ever-latent antagonism between the University

384 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and City was one of which the source may be traced
far back into the Middle Ages. It was the question
of the Vice-Chancellor's peculiar jurisdiction in causes
to which members of the University are parties, and,
still more specially, over charges against dissolute
women parading the streets. It happened that an
alleged miscarriage of justice in a case of this kind
had excited a violent agitation against the Vice-
Chancellor's jurisdiction at Cambridge, and, though
no similar miscarriage was alleged at Oxford, its
citizens were resolved not to lag behind those of
Cambridge in the assertion of their liberties. A
further grievance was the necessity of obtaining the
Vice- Chancellor's license for the performance of any
stage-play or public entertainment of a like character
within the precincts of the City. It is not easy to
justify such privileges, in theory, but it is quite
certain that, in practice, they are hardly ever abused,
and work well for the maintenance of good order in
the City no less than in the University. Indeed, it
has been doubted whether some of the shrewdest
citizens really desire their abolition, partly on this
very ground, and partly because they are loth to
part with a time-honoured but harmless irritant,
which serves a useful purpose in local elections.
Many a conference has taken place between the rival
authorities, and at one time a reasonable compromise
had been framed, but it was thrown over by the City
Council, and the dispute is still outstanding, though
means have been taken, by private arrangement, to
diminish the risk of its becoming acute. The fact is

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 385

that public opinion, both in and out of Oxford,
greatly exaggerates both the Vice-Chancellor's legal
powers, and, still more, those of the Proctors. The
Act of George IV., on which the latter are supposed
to rest, and which does create a more stringent
control over the streets of Oxford than exists in
London, practically vests this control not in the
Proctors, but in the Oxford constabulary, including
the " bulldogs " or sworn constables in the pay of
the University, but also including all the constables
in the pay of the City. "When the matter was being
discussed at a Committee of the City Council, I
pointed out this popular fallacy, but earnestly
advised that nothing should be done to undeceive
the people who cherished it. For, as I ventured to
argue, though every one on the Committee knew
that Vice-Chancellors are almost always just and
capable magistrates, sitting in an open court and not
in a secret chamber (as was often stated), and though
it was equally well known to us that Proctors exer-
cised their very limited rights with discretion, yet it
was highly expedient that the disorderly classes
should continue to regard the Vice-Chancellor in the
light of an inquisitor and the Proctors as constantly
resorting to arbitrary search and arrest, since this
wholesome delusion operated to protect the youth
of the City as well as of the University against the
notorious seductions of the Haymarket and Picca-
dilly. I also pointed out that the same statute
which gave the Vice-Chancellor a veto on theatrical
performances gave the Mayor, too, a concurrent veto,

2 B

386 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

and that, if this statute were repealed, supposing
the Vice-Chancellor wished to patronise a highly
improper and demoralising stage-play, the Mayor
would not be able to stop it. These arguments were
not accepted as decisive, but they were received as
possessing the merit of novelty.

When I ceased to be Alderman for the University
at the expiration of my term in 1892, I did not offer
myself for re-election, having found it difficult to pull
a labouring oar on the City Council, without neglect-
ing other duties. But I have always done my best
to promote friendly relations between leading men
in the City and University, therein following the
example and advice of the late Professor T. H. Green,
who did more than any one else to break down the
middle wall of partition between them. In accordance
with a hint from him, I have made it a practice since
1 88 1 to gather together mixed parties, representative
of both, in my own house, after the municipal elections
in November, and I have reason to believe that some
good has indirectly resulted from these little reunions.
I have also been for many years on the Governing
Body of the Oxford High School for Boys, one of the
best City institutions, which has done much to bring
forward promising lads from elementary schools, and
to give them the means of earning academical
distinction. It is hardly to be expected that a
complete social amalgamation can be effected between
University and City — at least, as long as ladies
dominate society, emphasising a marked difference
of habits and culture between the commercial and

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 387

non-commercial sections of the English middle-class.
But, for all other purposes, the rapprochement of Town
and Gown is yearly gaining strength, and a sufficient
proof of its reality is furnished by the fact that while
the City buildings were being reconstructed, during
the height of the controversy over jurisdiction, all
the municipal business was conducted in the Ex-
amination Schools, lent for the occasion by the
University.

In the meantime, I had been put into the Com-
mission of the Peace by Sir Henry Dashwood, then
Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, who had been my
only supporter among country gentlemen in my
contests at Woodstock. Thenceforth, I was tolerably
regular in my attendance at the BuUingdon Petty
Sessions, held weekly at Oxford, but exercising juris-
diction over the large district encircling Oxford on
the east and north-east beyond the City boundary.
This district included Burcote, the residence of Mr.
Jabez Balfour, and I remember that, on two occasions,
that gentleman attended our Bench, and gave us the
benefit of his counsels, as a brother-magistrate. It
has been the popular opinion, from Shakespeare's
time downwards, that magistrates' cases are of the
simplest possible kind, and are decided ofiTiand, with
more or less common-sense, but without much regard
to law, or much necessity for consulting law-books.
Having practised for two or three years at the Somer-
setshire and Bath Quarter Sessions, I was under no
such illusion, and my experience on the Bench causes
me to wonder that it should ever have prevailed so

388 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

widely. The cases of crime which come before
magistrates are not so grave as those received for the
Quarter Sessions or the Assizes, but the great diffi-
culty of all, the difficulty of weighing conflicting
evidence, is just the same in all courts of justice.
The frequent changes in the criminal law must be
studied by magistrates as much as by judges, and
two such changes, very recently made, have imposed
a heavy burden upon them. One of these is the law
enabling prisoners to give evidence on oath, which
applies to all criminal trials, though not, according
to most authorities, to inquests before Grand Juries.
The other is the law under which magistrates are
charged with the whole responsibility of granting
certificates of exemption from Vaccination, a law
which reflects little credit on the wisdom or moral
courage of Parliament. There are many other classes
of cases, outside the criminal law, with which magis-
trates have to deal, requiring constant references
to the Statute-book and an accurate knowledge of
procedure. If serious mistakes are seldom made, it
is chiefly because magistrates' clerks are generally
very competent lawyers, and the most experienced
magistrate is generally put into the chair. In both
these respects, we of the BuUingdon Bench have been
very fortunate, being assisted by a clerk thoroughly
versed in all branches of magistrates' law, while our
late Chairman, Mr. Thornhill, was a trained barrister
with every judicial qualification, and has been
replaced by a worthy successor in Sir William Anson.
No doubt, magistrates, who personally know the

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 389

character of prisoners tried before them, may some-
times find it rather hard to exclude that knowledge
from their minds in estimating the weight of evi-
dence, but their colleagues are on their guard against
any prejudice of this kind. Whatever Mr. Labouchere
may say, I have observed no want of sagacity and love
of justice on the magisterial bench, nor any disposi-
tion to punish crimes against property more severely
than crimes against the person — a bias which I should
condemn as strongly as he does. But magistrates,
like all judges, have to consider many circumstances
which do not appear in abridged newspaper reports.
A man, for instance, may be sentenced to one or two
months' imprisonment for some petty theft hardly
deserving a week's imprisonment if it were a first
ofience, but perhaps the magistrates had before them
a long list of previous convictions. Or a husband
may be let off with a light penalty, after beating his
wife, for which the angry censor would have sentenced
him off-hand to a sound flogging, regardless of the
fact that the law gives no such power. But, apart
from this slight difficulty, perhaps the magistrates had
good reason to believe that he acted under the greatest
provocation, or that a light penalty would be greatly
preferred by the wife, and conduce to future domestic
peace ; whereas the censor has perhaps not pictured
to himself the return of the flogged husband to the
bosom of his family. The new element introduced
by Chairmen of District Councils, sitting as ex officio
magistrates, has yet to be more fully tested, and
may possibly incline to weakness in vaccination

390 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

cases, for instance ; but I can speak very favour-
ably of the judicial capacity shown by my ex officio
colleagues.

■ In the year 1887 I was elected to represent the
University of Oxford on the Governing Body of Eton
College. This body is a good specimen of those
created under the Public Schools Commission for the
government of what may be called the leading schools
of England. The Provost of Eton is, ex officio, its
chairman, the Provost of King's College is next in
precedence, and most of the other nine members are
nominated by various learned corporations, one being
elected by the masters of Eton itself, and one being
appointed by the Lord Chief-Justice of England.
Among the members so appointed have been two ex-
Lord Chancellors, the late Lord Selborne and Lord
Herschell, and the present Lord Chancellor, Lord
Halsbury. Notwithstanding the eminence, and press-
ing engagements, of some among the Governors, the
attendance at meetings has generally been regular,
and our proceedings have always been conducted in
a spirit of friendly harmony. Still, it may perhaps
be doubtful whether so large and heterogeneous a
Governing Body is really the best machinery for
ruling the affairs of a school like Eton, or rather for
ruling that part of its affairs which is not within the
very comprehensive province of the Head-master.
The most essential function of a Governing Body is
the appointment, and, in the last resort, the dis-
missal of the Head-master ; and all are agreed that
he should be left, as far as possible, supreme in all

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 391

matters of discipline and school administration. But
it would be easy, if it were proper, to specify a
multitude of subjects, from the management of landed
estates and house property down to the regulation of
petty domestic charges in boarding-houses, on which
the intervention of an independent authority is all
but necessary. What that authority should be, is
too delicate a question for me to discuss. I will only
suggest that, while a large Governing Body may be
more trustworthy for the purpose of appointing a
Head-master, a smaller Governing Body, thoroughly
conversant with the school affairs, and meeting at
short intervals, might be more efficient for purposes
of general control. In my opinion, the immense
popularity of Eton among the richest classes, and the
increasing number of entries for boarding-houses,
involves difficulties which are not equally felt in
any other public school, and on which I will touch
lightly. On the one hand, too many parents of this
type care little how their sons are taught, so long
as they are made happy, and would not support
the masters in enforcing upon them even a mini-
mum of industry. On the other hand, the vested
interests, real or imaginary, of assistant-masters
founding their expectations on a rising market, are
liable to become a formidable obstacle to arrange-
ments which may be thought necessary in the
interests of the school. Many of such difficulties
arise out of the system whereby the incomes of
senior masters are chiefly derived from the profits
of boarding-houses, and there are those who have

392 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

the audacity to challenge the absolute perfection
of that system.

The administration of Eton has often been the
subject of public criticism, and I, for one, do not
deprecate such criticism, though it is apt to be
strangely misdirected. For instance, I have some-
times heard the Governing Body of Eton accused of
a niggardly parsimony in bricks and mortar, whereas
those who remember the school as it was "in the
forties," when I was a boy, might accuse us, with
far more justice, of extravagance in the provision of
buildings and playgrounds. Some of our critics have
conjured up the ominous vision of a Government
Inspector sent down, under the new Secondary Edu-
cation Act, to spy out the weak points of the School.
If such an Inspector were commissioned to study the
Eton system, as a whole, and to examine not only
schoolrooms, boarding-houses, and educational plant,
but the efficiency of teaching, the standard of industry
among the learners, and the educational results
achieved, I confess that I should await his judgment
with some anxiety. In this case, I fear that he would
discover shortcomings wholly different from a defi-
ciency in domestic comfort or means of recreation,
and would be impressed, not by the scantiness of the
school accommodation in any department, still less
by the cheapness of Eton education, but, on the con-
trary, by the fact that expenditure so lavish, both
from the pockets of parents and from the endow-
ments of the College, should produce so little fruit of
an intellectual kind. But if he were a competent

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 393

inspector, he would not throw all the blame of this
upon the masters, well knowing how difficult it is for
masters to enforce industry, unless loyally supported
by parents. Nor would he fail to appreciate the
success of Eton not only in turning out gentlemen,
but in turning out men eminently qualified for the
public service in all its branches.

If, however, he were to look at Eton with the eyes
of an architect and surveyor, he would surely form a
very favourable impression. In the first place, he
would of course admire the grandeur of our noble
College Chapel, and he would hear with surprise that,
when it proved too small to contain the whole School
at once, the expedient of using it for two sections of
boys in turns was barely considered, and a new Lower
Chapel was built at a cost of many thousand pounds.
He would next discover that within the last forty
years two immense blocks of schoolrooms had been
erected, so that at present there are three or four
times as many schoolrooms as there were under Dr.
Hawtrey, the worst of which is better than the best
of those which then served for 700 or 800 boys.
Being informed that none of the old rooms was heated
in any way, and that all were overcrowded, he would
not see any extravagance in this very liberal increase
of accommodation ; but he would hardly be prepared
to learn that, in the opinion of Eton masters, each of
nearly sixty assistants ought to have a separate class-
room for himself, that twenty specially-constructed
rooms have been claimed for musical teaching alone,
and that, although Natural Science has already two

394 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

laboratories, a very large extension of buildings is
still demanded for that branch of study. If he should
pursue his inquiries a little further, he would find
that about £40,000 were spent in the course of four-
teen years in the construction and conversion of school
buildings, over and above the large sums invested by
house-masters in the erection and improvement of
boarding-houses .

Knowing how large a space athletic sports occupy
in the life of English public schools, he would as-
suredly not grudge the greatest of them an ample
proportion of cricket grounds, football grounds, and
other appliances for games, but he would as certainly
be amazed by the scale of our resources for outdoor
amusement. Foremost among these he would reckon
the river Thames itself, which Eton, alone of public
schools, possesses as an accessory to its splendid
recreation grounds on land, and which occupies the
athletic energies of at least half the boys during the
whole summer. Then he would learn that, while at
Rugby and Harrow respectively less than sixteen and
less than eighteen acres are allotted to cricket, the old
Eton playing fields, containing nearly ten acres of
cricket ground, have been enlarged within the last
twenty years by the addition of new grounds cover-
ing above 100 acres, and costing upwards of £50,000.
He would learn that part of this enormous area had
been allotted to football, a game which already
possessed grounds of its own large enough to excite
the envy of any other school, not to speak of
racquet-courts or fives-courts, or of the great extent

LITERARY AND OFFICIAL WORK 395

of practically open country over which Eton boys
can and do range freely. Upon the whole, there-
fore, I do not think an impartial Inspector would
pass a severe judgment on the provision made at
Eton for athletic exercises, or on its School buildings,
including the boarding-houses, in which each boy has
a separate bed-room.

CHAPTER XVIII

APPEARANCE BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION

1889

Foundation of tlie " Oxford University Unionist League " — My Presi-
dential address — Motion against me before the Special (Parnell)
Commission for contempt of Court alleged to be committed in a
passage of this address — My appearance and affidavit — Dismissal
of the case — Lord Bramwell's letter — Memorial from Oxford
friends.

In accepting the Wardenship of Merton, I aban-
doned all idea of a Parliamentary career, and felt
that, however lawful, it would not be expedient to
engage actively in political struggles within the
University or City of Oxford. On this principle,
I declined overtures from the Liberal Party in the
City and in the new division of Mid-Oxfordshire, as
well as in other constituencies, and, so far as I re-
member, my only political speeches in Oxford before
1886 were an Address on "Household Suflfrage in
Counties," delivered in May 1884, and an Address on
" The Duty of Moderate Liberals at the coming Elec-
tion," delivered in November 1885. My reason for
this reticence was not that I had become indifferent
to politics after ceasing to be an effective, but chiefly
that I held a position which I think inconsistent

with the rough and vehement partisanship of elec-

396

BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION 397

tioneering. Above all, I recognised that, as towards
the College, and especially towards its junior mem-
bers, my character was non-political, and I carried
this view so far that I have never once allowed
myself to be drawn into any political discussion
in the Merton Common-Eoom, or in conversation
with undergraduates. As a citizen, and as one
whose life had been spent in forming political con-
victions, I should not have felt it right to suppress
those convictions, but I would not bandy arguments
upon them, or attempt to propagate them in Oxford.
The Home Eule crisis forced me to deviate for
once, to a certain extent, from these principles.
Here was no ordinary issue of party-politics, but
the deliberate alliance of those who adhered to
Gladstone, with a body of men whom they had
denounced as guilty of a criminal and all but
treasonable conspiracy. Whether or not the alliance
was struck for the purpose of securing a great party
majority, was to me a secondary question ; it was
enough for me that it was a base surrender of in-
terests which I, in common with the whole Liberal
party in Great Britain, had maintained as sacred,
and the vital importance of which my study of
Ireland had brought home to me ever more and
more. In such an emergency I felt it a duty to
show my colours, and, though I seldom appeared
on a platform, I supported the Unionist cause as
a speaker at Rugby, Bath, Cambridge, and Farn-
ham, where my nephew, St. John Brodrick, now
Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, held a meeting,

398 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

as candidate for the Guildford Division of Surrey.
I was also among the leading promoters of a Liberal
Unionist Association for Oxfordshire, of which the
backbone was supplied by University men — among
whom I may name Mr. P. Lyttelton Gell, my
nephew by marriage, upon whom much of the hard
work devolved. We always succeeded in keeping
up the best possible relations with the Conserva-
tives, and the crown of our success was the return
of Unionist members, in 1895, for all three Divisions
of Oxfordshire, as well as for the City of Oxford.
I was fortunate enough to assemble all of these,
together with both the Unionist members for the
University, the Unionist member for the City, the
Lord-Lieutenant of the county, the Bishop of the
diocese, and many of our fellow-labourers, at an
Unionist dinner-party in my own house on Novem-
ber I of that year. But I am here anticipating the
course of events, and must recur to a little episode
which rudely disturbed my quiet life during the
winter of 1888-89, ^^^ attracted some public atten-
tion. This episode arose, under circumstances which
require explanation, out of the violent controversy
which raged over the publication of the celebrated
articles on " Parnellism and Crime " by the Times
newspaper. It will be remembered that some of
these articles contained what purported to be fac-
similes of letters signed by Mr. Parnell and other
Nationalist leaders, which letters were said to show
complicity with the Phoenix Park murders and other
crimes. Of course, these accusations were furiously

BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION 399

resented by the Home Rule members, and Mr. Par-
nell at last took up the challenge of the Times by
instituting an action for libel, but in the meantime a
Special Commission was appointed by Parliament to
inquire into all the questions, including that of the
letters, which had been raised in the obnoxious articles.
Of this Commission Sir James Hannen was Presi-
dent, with Mr. Justice Day and Mr. Justice (now
Lord Justice) A. L. Smith for his colleagues. It
sat for several months in 1888 and 1889, with the
result that its report has been quoted ever since by
Home Rulers as an acquittal on the smaller issues,
and by Unionists as a conviction on the larger
issue.

It happened that while the Special Commission
was sitting, I had taken the chief part in founding
a society called the " Oxford University Unionist
League," and had become its President. In an
address delivered at the first meeting of this body on
December i, 1888, I frankly admitted that I had
long hesitated to do anything which might seem
like encouraging political agitation among the
younger members of the University. I stated that,
in my opinion, the University, as a place of education
and learning, was not a suitable arena for politics,
and that, if it were, it would seldom be well for
undergraduates to mix themselves up prematurely
with political controversy. I justified my departure
from academical neutrality partly on the ground that
the country was in the throes of a great national
crisis, making it the duty of all patriotic citizens to

400 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

stand together shoulder to shoulder, in presence of
a common enemy and of an overwheming danger ;
partly on the ground that unscrupulous eflforts had
been made in Oxford itself " to enlist recruits in the
service of the National League — a body which is now
on its trial for crimes which shock humanity."
" The Irish Question," I said, " has ceased to be a
question of mere party politics — it has ceased to
be a merely political question, and has become
mainly a moral question. The Liberals, headed by
Mr. Gladstone, have entered into an open alliance
with men who receive their instructions and draw
their pay from the foreign enemies of Great Britain,
who have declared war against Civil Government
itself, and who defy the supremacy of the law. We
Unionists might almost say of them in the language
of Scripture : ' Our princes are rebellious, and have
become the companions of thieves.' There is but
one answer to such an alliance. It is the formation
of a counter-alliance — that is, of a National Party —
and I know no reason why the formation of such a
party embracing Conservatives and Liberal Unionists,
should not begin at Oxford."

I have ventured to quote this passage, not only
as containing an early forecast of the present
Unionist Coalition, then in the clouds, but also as
throwing light upon another paragraph in the same
address, upon which a motion for contempt of Court
was actually founded. The full text of that para-
graph, abridged in the report of the London papers,
is given in the affidavit which I submitted to the

BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION 401

Court, and which I reproduce on a later page of this
chapter. It may appear incredible to any one who
reads it fairly, and ought to have been impossible,
that an utterance of this kind, ironical on the face of
it, and perfectly harmless, even if it had been serious,
should be treated for a moment as a " contempt of
Court "—that is, as adapted, if not intended, to inter-
fere with the course of justice. But things which are
impossible are constantly happening, and the Special
Commissioners innocently fell into a trap skilfully
devised for the purpose of shielding another person
at my expense. On December 14, 1888, an applica-
tion was made by the Attorney-General before the
Commission against Mr. William O'Brien, described
as the proprietor of United Ireland, for a contempt
of Court, alleged to have been committed by the
publication of an article in that paper. This article,
read in Court, was represented to convey not only
libellous reflections on the conduct of the prosecution,
but gross imputations on the impartiality of the
Court itself. Before the President had expressed
any opinion upon it, Mr. Eeid, Q.C., as counsel for
Mr. Dillon, Mr. E. Harrington, and other Irish mem-
bers of Parliament, started up and made a similar
application against myself, founded on a passage,
carefully divorced from its context, in the condensed
Times report of " what purports to be " the address
delivered by me on December i. This passage he
declared to be " a clear comparison of Mr. Davitt
and Mr. Dillon with an infamous criminal." He
stated that the matter had been under his considera-

2 c

402 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

tion for several days, but that he shrunk from pressing
it on the attention of the Court until the Attorney-
General brought his charge against Mr. O'Brien. In
other words, the language used by me, thus garbled,
was to be treated as a set-off to that used by Mr.
O'Brien, in the hope that the Court might deal the
same measure to both of us. This ruse proved
entirely successful, but in one important respect I
received scantier justice than Mr. O'Brien. In his
ease, the Court pointed out more than once the neces-
sity of " a proper affidavit," as well as notice, unless
the requirement of an affidavit should be waived,
and Mr. O'Brien's proprietorship of United Ireland
admitted. This was forthwith done on his behalf by
Mr. Reid, and the Attorney-General further stated,
without contradiction, that the proprietorship had
already been proved at an earlier stage of the proceed-
ings. In my case, no such affidavit was required, and
the President, without any more inquiry, authorised
Mr. Reid to give me notice to appear on the first day
of the next sitting, that is to say, on January 14,
1889. For, though it had been proposed to sit on
the following day, or the following Tuesday, in order
to deal with both applications promptly, it turned, out
that Mr. O'Brien was in Ireland, and. so they were
allowed to stand over during the recess.

The preposterous charge thus sprung upon me
first came to my notice through a placard sum-
marising the contents of an evening newspaper, which
I happened to see at the Richmond Station. On
reaching London, I immediately took steps to inform

BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION 403

the President that I should appear in Court the next
morning and answer for myself, little knowing that
an adjournment of a whole month had been arranged,
during which interval I should have this sword hang-
ing over me. I was most anxious to conduct my own
case, feeling sure that, by a plain statement of the cir-
cumstances, and a simple rehearsal of the paragraph
containing the sentences extracted, I could easily
expose and explode the whole proceeding. However,
in deference to the advice of Sir Henry James (now
Lord James), I determined to seek legal assistance,
and, as he felt himself unable to speak on my behalf
(being already engaged as Counsel for the Times),
I placed myself in the hands of Mr. Alfred Lyttelton,
already a rising barrister, on whose tried friendship
I knew that I could thoroughly rely. It was decided
that my answer to the application should be embodied
in an affidavit, drawn by myself, to which Mr.
Lyttelton should add any remarks or explanations
which he might find necessary. On Jan. 14, when
the Court resumed its sittings after the recess. Sir C.
Russell, now Lord Russell, made another application
for a contempt of Court against the Worcester Daily
Times, the hearing of which was postponed, after
an earnest protest by the President against the
multiplication of such interruptions. The Attorney-
General then brought forward the case of Mr. O'Brien,
who, being present, elected to speak for himself, and
made a spirited defence of the article in United
Ireland, part of which, had I followed him, I might
have been disposed to adopt. After a brief reply

404 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

from the Attorney-General, the Court reserved its
decision, and my own case was called on. Having
defined my position in a most conciliatory tone, Mr.
Lyttelton proceeded to read my affidavit, which I
here subjoin verbatim, as it contains the whole sub-
stance of my argument, — an argument which ought
never to have been required at all, and mainly con-
sisted in the interpretation of language which clearly
interpreted itself :

"In answer to the application made to this Honour-
able Court by Mr. Raid, Q.C., on the 14th day of
December last, I, George Charles Brodrick, make oath
and say as follows : —

" I. I desire respectfully to state that I do not disavow
the substance of the words cited by Mr. Raid, but that
I do repudiate, most strongly and most indignantly, the
construction which it is sought to force upon them. I
deny absolutely that in the passage cited I said anything
constituting or resembling a ' contempt of Court,' either
by showing disrespect towards the Special Commission —
for which no man entertains a higher respect than I do
— or by commenting directly or indirectly on its pro-
ceedings, or by prejudging any one of the issues now
before the Commission.

"2. I respectfully submit for the consideration of the
Court the circumstances under which I spoke and the
context of the passage cited. I was addressing a private
assembly, mainly composed of Oxford undergraduates,
and my one object in the introductory paragraph to which
exception is taken, was to ridicule, in a spirit of good-
humoured banter, the love of innovation and of sensational
notoriety-hunting prevalent in a certain school of young
Oxford politicians. This is self-evident on the face of the
paragraph itself, which I here subjoin, and the whole

BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION 405

of whicli, as the Court will see, is conceived in that
spirit : —

"'And first I would point out that our main object
is defensive. That is more than our opponents can say.
Their policy and tactics are essentially aggressive, and this
— strange to say — gives them a great advantage, specially
in appealing to young Oxford minds. Some of you may
remember the old Parliamentary squib in which the
Radical reformers are described as framing a motion,
" to abolish the sun and the moon," and if such a measure
were proposed by Mr. Gladstone, I do believe that it would
be easier to get up an association in Oxford to support
the abolition of those ancient institutions than it would
be to rouse enthusiasm in favour of maintaining them.
And so we have not only a Home Rule League, which
imdergraduates of advanced views have been earnestly
pressed to join, but also, as I understand, an Oxford
branch of the National League, with a Nonconformist
minister for its president, which has not yet taken any
very active part in organising outrage, so far as I know,
but which may yet succeed in attracting the attention of
the Parnell Inquiry Commission. We have also already
had visits from Mr. H. George, Mr. Hyndman, Mr. Davitt
Mr. Dillon, and Mr. Healy, and my impression is that if
the Whitechapel murderer could be identified, he would
be invited to lecture by an Oxford club which I could
name if I thought proper.'

" 3. There are three allusions of the same character
in this paragraph. I would ask whether the first is to
be construed seriously as attributing to Mr. Gladstone
an intention to move for the abolition of the heavenly
bodies? If not, is the second to be construed seriously
as attributing to an Oxford branch of the National League
the design of organising outrage, and thus coming within
the cognisance of the Commission ? If not, is the last
to be construed seriously as purporting to associate and
compare, in respect of criminality, gentlemen represented

4o6 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

before the Commission — and not only these, but Mr.
Henry George and Mr. Hyndman — with the most atrocious
of unknown murderers ? The very extravagance of the
supposed parallel is enough to rebut so absurd a con-
struction. However, since it has been gravely urged, I
hasten to admit that if such had been the real purport of
the allusion, I should have been guilty of a grievous
impropriety and injustice towards the gentlemen named,
including Mr. H. George and Mr. Hyndman, as well as
those represented before the Commission. But I can
assure the Court, and I can assure these gentlemen — if
they care to accept my assurance — that no such idea ever
crossed my mind. The single idea present to my mind
was the idea of notoriety, and not that of criminality.
Having named several gentlemen notorious for their
advocacy of extreme opinions on various subjects, all of
whom had been invited to lecture at Oxford, I suggested,
by way of climax and reductio ad absurdum, the invita-
tion of the Whitechapel murderer, simply as the most
notorious personage that occurred to me. Perhaps it was
not the most felicitous illustration which could have been
chosen, but I am certain that no man who heard me
understood me for one moment to associate Irish National-
ists with the Whitechapel murderer in point of crvtninality ,
and I maintain that no rational man reading the passage
would put so preposterous a construction upon it.

" 4. The rest of the speech referred to in the summons
has been greatly abridged in the Times report, which
embodies but one-third of the original. It contains strong
expressions of political convictions, which I believe that
I share with the whole Unionist party, and strong reflec-
tions on the revolutionary movement in Ireland; but I
submit that it contains no expression of opinion upon the
subject matter of the present inquiry, nor any statement
imputing criminality to Mr. Reid's clients, or calculated
to prejudice in the smallest degree the conduct of these
proceedings. Not only had I no such intention, but I

BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION 407

abstained throughout from touching upon topics which
might appear to fall within the jurisdiction of this Com-
mission, acknowledging, as I do, that it is the duty of
every fair-minded man to suspend his judgment on all
matters which are now sub judice.

" 5. This is my explanation, and I leave it with entire
confidence in the hands of the Court. If I have erred
unwittingly, I beg to express my sincerest regret. But
I submit to the Court — as a matter of reason and common-
sense — that my words, fairly interpreted, were perfectly
innocent. Were it necessary or relevant, I should be
prepared to contend that I did not overstep the legitimate
bounds of political discussion. But this is not the ques-
tion before the Commission. The question before the
Commission is exclusively one of 'contempt of Court.'
Now, I submit once more to the Court, that I said not
a word that can possibly be construed to show disrespect
for its authority, or to comment directly or indirectly on
its proceedings, or to prejudge any one of the issues now
pending before it. I therefore appeal to the Court, most
respectfully, but most earnestly, to acquit me honourably
of an offence which, I declare on my honour, was as
remote from my thoughts as it is repugnant to my
character. George C. Beodbick."

After reading this afl&davit, Mr. Lyttelton com-
mented on the delay in taking proceedings against
me, as a proof that Mr. Reid's charge was " in the
nature of a counter claim." He went on to submit
" that it would be a monstrous injustice, if words
which are absolutely innocent in themselves should
have an odious construction placed upon them,
simply because complaint has been made against
another person with whom Mr. Brodrick has
no connection whatever." Instead of withdraw-

4o8 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

ing from this offensive construction, Mr. Eeid, in
reply, insisted that it was the natural one, until Mr.
Justice A. L. Smith pointed out that it was nega-
tived by the suppressed context. Mr. Eeid then fell
back on the contention that I ought at all events to
have expressed regret if my language was capable
of that construction, whereupon Sir J. Hannen
pointed out that I had distinctly expressed that
conditional regret, and Mr. Lyttelton emphatically
repeated the disavowal made in the affidavit itself.
Nothing remained but a formal declaration from the
President, that, upon a perusal of the whole pas-
sage containing the words impugned, the Court
accepted my assurance and saw no cause for its
intervention.

So ended this frivolous and vindictive attempt to
damage the Unionist cause through me, — as though
I had any claim to be treated as a standard-bearer
of the party. On the same day, and on a later
occasion. Sir James Hannen, whom I knew per-
sonally, expressed a wish to discuss the matter
privately with me, but I firmly declined, and, on
his pressing me, told him plainly that I feared I
could not do so, without being guilty of a real
contempt of Court. It is needless to say that, while
I received a shower of condolences and congratu-
lations from Unionist and even non-Unionist friends,
I was vilified for some weeks by the Home Rule
press. Out of many sympathetic letters I select
that of Lord Bramwell, as expressing the deliberate
judgment of an eminently judicial mind : —

BEFORE THE SPECIAL COMMISSION 409

"17 Oadogan Place,
Jan. 25, 1889.

"Dear Me. Beodrick, — I have read the speech, and
for the first time rightly understood and known what it
was that you said. I am utterly surprised that any one
could have considered it a contempt of Court, or any
imputation on the Home Rulers. And, as to saying that
you liken them to the Whitechapel murderer, it is pre-
posterous. You say that in Oxford there are people with
extravagant notions, and in particular one club which
would give a hearing to the Whitechapel murderer. So
far from saying that the Home Rulers are murderers, you
by implication say that they are not. For you say that
certain persons had been to Oxford, and that even the mur-
derer would be invited by one club. Besides, George and
Hyndman are not Home Rulers, or at least not notorious
as such. It really was outrageous to charge this as a
contempt. I thought Reid ungracious, and, to say the
truth, I thought Hannen cold. / cannot hut think now
that he ought to have severely denounced the proceeding,
I have the highest regard and respect for him. He is the
perfection of a judicial character. I wonder if he appre-
hended the matter rightly. — Very truly yours,

" Bramwell."

A few weeks later a kindly memorial was
presented to me, bearing the signatures of some
130 Oxford friends, including several professed
Home Rulers. It repudiated indignantly the false
accusation of which I had been the subject, and I
valued it highly as a gratifying proof of confidence,
but, as it was marked " private," it was of course
useless as a protest or protection against public
attacks. A more eflfective testimonial from my
fellow-Unionists was an invitation to preside at the

4IO MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

next dinner of the Liberal Unionist Club, when
Lord Derby was the chief guest. I accepted this
office, but on the morning of the appointed day came
the news of John Bright's death. The dinner was
therefore put oflF until May i8, 1889, when I was in
the chair, and Lord Derby made a characteristic
speech, full of inspired common-sense, in the utter-
ance of which he was so great a master.

CHAPTER XIX

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

Fallacies of forecasts — Temptations of optimism in retrospect — Ground
for a hopeful view of the national health.

No man can look back over a life of nearly seventy
years, and forward into the opening vista of a new
century, without framing to himself some estimate
of his own times, and even some forecast of those
which are to follow them. Such forecasts, however,
whether optimistic or pessimistic, must needs be
highly delusive, if, indeed, they are not in their very
nature presumptuous. One simple reason for this is
that, although we may clearly discern tendencies, we
cannot possibly know which of them are destined to
die away, and which of them to prevail. Another
is, that very much — though not so much as hero-
worshippers believe — must depend on the action of
epoch-making individuals, whose birth and death are
equally beyond the range of prediction. The men
of the eighteenth century would have been quite
impotent to cast the horoscope of the nineteenth
century, and who are we that we should rashly
attempt to cast the horoscope of the twentieth
century ? It is but a few years since my old friend,
Mr. C. H. Pearson, indulged in speculations of this

412 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

kind in his volume entitled "National Life and
Character." They attracted great attention, were
treated with great respect, and purported to rest
on an almost scientific basis. Yet the war between
China and Japan, with its momentous sequel, was
sufficient to upset some of his most important con-
clusions, and had he lived to revise them by the
light of those events, he must have rewritten much
of his work. No — let us frankly recognise the fact
that we can no more foretell the future course of
national life than we can that of individual life,
though in both cases we may do something to influ-
ence that course.

Retrospect, no doubt, is safer than prophecy, and
yet how few retrospective eulogies of the Queen's
reign, put forth in the Jubilee years of 1887 and
1897, were untainted by a certain ^w de siecle spirit
of self-complacency. We justly congratulated our-
selves on our progress in material civilisation, typi-
fied by railways, steam - vessels, telegraphs, and
engineering works ; on our social progress, as repre-
sented by the spread of education and refinement in
manners ; on our intellectual progress, chiefly shown
in the marvellous development of Natural Science ;
on the constant growth of inventions for the increase
of human comfort and the relief of human sufi"ering.
But who ventured to point out that in the ominous
advance of Socialism, and what Socialists call " Mili-
taryism," we are confronted with two portentous
evils and dangers to civilisation, which go far to
balance its conquests in other directions ? Certain it

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 413

is that we seem to be further removed from the
Millennium of social and international peace than we
appeared to be some fifty years ago, however grateful
we may and ought to be for the benefits that we
have secured in the meantime. Whatever be the
subject on which we are tempted to claim superiority
to former ages, we may find something to rebuke
our vanity, and to warn us against undue admiration
of our own times.

After all, however, it is a legitimate and profit-
able question whether, on the whole, our world is a
better world than that in which our grandfathers
were living before the Queen's accession. Now, if
the happiness of men, women, and children be the
supreme test of world-bettering, as it should be the
supreme aim of statesmanship, there is surely no
self-deception in believing that we in this country
have indeed reached a higher stage. The mere fact
that population has been doubled is not in itself
conclusive, for misery and crime might possibly have
increased in still greater proportion ; but the plain
fact that we have twice as many fellow-citizens as
before, with less misery and less crime than before,
cannot but indicate an accession of human happi-
ness. Most of the unfavourable symptoms which
now cause us anxiety are outweighed by a general
improvement in the national health. Life is assuredly
better worth living for the mass of the poor than it
was two generations ago ; they are better paid, better
fed, better housed, better clothed, better taught, and
better provided with innocent recreations. No less

414 MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS

true is it that life is more enjoyable for all those of
the middle and upper classes who know the meaning
of reasonable enjoyment. Luxury and the love of
pleasure may be carried to excess, but the innocent
luxuries of one age are the comforts of the next, and
a taste for refined pleasures, such as those of Music
and Art, is not only an important element of happi-
ness, but in harmony with the highest ideal of life.
Let us take comfort in the belief that English society
at the end of the nineteenth century is permeated
with public spirit and the sense of public duty to
a degree which atones for many grievous failings.
Ours is not an age of faith ; it is not even a religious
age, if religion be measured by spiritual devotion ;
yet it is an age in which a truly Christian philan-
thropy is no longer confined to philanthropists or to
Christians, but has been accepted by the national
conscience as it never was in the olden days.
Whether the new gospel of philanthropy will be
perverted into the creed of Socialism, or purified and
ennobled by a new inspiration of personal and prac-
tical Christianity, is a problem reserved for another
century. For us, " that is a secret which lies behind
the veil."

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Edinburgh &■ London

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